Workshop on Human rights issues in world trade: Organizational implications of legal and social responsibilities

On november 25. 2011, under the programme of Horizontal Issue III ‘The Role of Private Actors’, the workshop ‘Human rights issues in world trade: Organizational implications of legal and social responsibilities’ took place at the Weiterbildungszentrum of the University of Zurich from 10am to 3:30pm. In a short introduction, the facilitators of the workshop - Katja Gehne and Anselm Schneider- , outlined the challenge of analyzing the self-regulatory activities of business firms was outlined. Accordingly, the decisive feature of organizational self-regulation in the contemporary global economic and legal setting is the absence of a central authority. Instead, a multiplicity of actors – states, business firms, and non-governmental organizations – engage alone or in various coalitions in processes of rule-making and implementation. In this setting, it becomes necessary to find governance mechanisms which are effective on the one hand and lerceived as legitimate on the other hand.

In the first presentation Professor Christine Kaufmann provided an overview over current approaches to self –regulation in the area of human rights such as the OECD Guidelines for multinational enterprises and ISO 26000. In particular, in her presentation she emphasized the importance of the framework elaborated by the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary General on human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, John Ruggie. This framework can be regarded as a turning point in the conceptualization of the responsibility of enterprises for human rights, shifting the focus from ‘rights to risks and solving dilemmas’.

Subsequently, Nils Rosemann of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA)  gave an overview over the view of the Swiss FDFA on the corporate responsibility to respect human rights. After a short summary of the rationale to promote business responsibility (constitution, neutrality, humanitarian tradition), he argued that such measures are regarded as appropriate to prevent global society from entering a ‘downward spiral’ leading to universal violence and insecurity.

The next speaker, Dr. Franziska Humbert of Oxfam Germany, described her experiences in the process of drafting the corporate social responsibility norm ISO 26000. After a brief summary of the history and rationale of this norm, the key concepts of supply chain, sphere of influence, due diligence, and complicity were explained. According to the speaker, on the one hand, the vague language of the standard and the lack of a supervisory mechanism as well as the underrepresentation of labour-representatives in the process of drafting of the standard are points open to optimization. However, on the other hand the comprehensive definition of the concepts of sphere of influence, due diligence, and complicity can be regarded as major achievements of ISO 26000. Thus ISO 26000 can be regarded an important contribution to soft law and might even be a step towards more binding regulation, e.g. within the framework of the WTO.

In the fourth presentation Professor Andreas Scherer elaborated on the role of business in the post-national constellation, which is characterized by decreasing regulatory power of national governments. In particular, he described the increasingly political role of business, resulting from the engagement of private firms in domains traditionally regarded as the domain of the state. The implication of this new role of business for the role of law, responsibility, governance, and legitimacy were described. Accordingly, in the post-national constellation, a shift from hard law to soft law can be observed, constituting a new regime of global governance. Thus, businesses are confronted with increased responsibilities, transcending the traditional task of value generation and aiming at the establishment of corporate legitimacy.

Finally, Professor Peer Zumbansen in his presentation on ‘Improbable Coalitions? Trade, Human Rights, and Global Governance’ proposed transnational law as a methodology to understanding the dynamics of the relationship between states and markets, which can be regarded as underlying the problems of business and human rights addressed in the former presentations. Accordingly, drawing on system theory, firstly intercontextuality, fragmentation, gradualization, and regime collisions render the analysis of law and governance in a global context a complex task and necessitate a redefinition of the concept of law in the context of different, overlapping and intersecting societal processes. Secondly, he emphasized the necessity of the distinction between private and public spheres as points of reference of analyses of governance regimes. As a step towards such analyses, he proposed a shift towards a focus on norms and actors to facilitate appropriate research on norms as well as on norm-making in contemporary governance.