Frontiers of Human Rights: Corporate Responsibility and the Environment

of a dissertation at the University of Miami. Dissertation supervised by Professor James W. Nickel. No. of pages in text. (180) This dissertation addresses two issues at the cutting edge of human rights theory and practice: the human rights obligations of corporations and the emergence of environmental human rights. Human rights have historically been conceived as rights that individuals have against the state. However, in our globalized economy, multi-national corporations have emerged as powerful and influential agents. Current international practice holds that states have an obligation to respect, protect, and fulfill human rights, but that corporations only have a responsibility to respect human rights. Many commentators have argued that this is problematic and that we should posit corporate obligation to protect and/or fulfill human rights. The issue of the appropriate range of corporate human rights obligations is explored in light of the ongoing debate about political versus moral conceptions of human rights. Political conceptions view the primary function of human rights as regulating the international relations between states, while moral conceptions tend to focus on rights that all people have simply in virtue of being human. I argue against the claim that political conceptions will prescribe only an obligation to respect human rights, arguing instead that, due to their reliance on varying conceptions of the practice of human rights, political conceptions can prescribe anything from a very extensive set of corporate human rights obligations to none at all. Moral conceptions see human rights as moral rights that must be respected by all moral agents, and so prescribe at least an obligation of corporations to respect human rights. However, moral conceptions can differ when it comes to principles or criteria for determining which classes of agents are potentially eligible to bear responsibility for positive obligations to protect or fulfill human rights, as well as principles or criteria for determining the allocation of these obligations to particular agents. For this reason, moral conceptions leave it indeterminate what obligations they will prescribe beyond a basic obligation to respect. I conclude that the current distinction between political and moral conceptions of human rights is too abstract to give a determinate answer as to the appropriate range of corporate human rights obligations. I argue instead for a hybrid theory of human rights, which combines elements from both types of conceptions. Political conceptions demonstrate the need for some accountability to the practice of human rights, while moral conceptions demonstrate the need for normative criterion to determine the allocation of particular types of human rights obligations to particular classes of agents. The past few decades have also seen an increasing recognition and development of the environmental dimensions of international human rights. However, there has been an even greater incorporation and development of environmental rights at the national constitutional level. Some have argued that due to cultural differences concerning values such as development versus environmental protection, environmental rights are best developed and adjudicated at the national level. I argue against this claim by showing that there are unique benefits that can only be realized by developing and adjudicating international environmental human rights. But the existence of cultural differences does create pressure to keep the content of these rights minimal, since they provide universal standards for all nations. Finally, I engage in a close analysis of the United Nations “corporate responsibility to respect human rights. ” I argue that respect for rights can entail not merely negative, but also positive obligations. Furthermore, the positive obligations may be more extensive than previously realized, and in certain cases require provision of the object of a right. However, while corporations may have a universal obligation to respect human rights, the precise requirements of this obligation can only be determined in light of a particular political, institutional, and social environment. This shows that cultural differences can shape not merely the content of rights, as in the case of environmental human rights, but also the obligations to which human rights give rise.