Corporate Accountability in Human Rights Practices

Corporate accountability in human rights practices encompasses the mechanisms, norms and processes through which business enterprises are expected to respect, protect and remedy human rights impacts. Drawing on the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, this field examines voluntary and mandatory approaches to human rights due diligence, as well as the evolving landscape of national and transnational regulation. Key themes include the integration of human rights considerations into corporate governance, the role of stakeholder engagement, the design of effective remedy and grievance mechanisms, and the tension between corporate power and social expectations. Recent developments have seen a shift from purely voluntary disclosure towards binding legal obligations in multiple jurisdictions, alongside growing interest in participatory, rightsholder-driven frameworks and treaty-level accountability. The research highlights both the potential of due diligence to mitigate harms and the challenges posed by divergent regulatory requirements, power asymmetries, and limited enforcement. Applications range from supply-chain transparency to climate-related human rights assessments, underscoring the global significance of holding business actors to evolving standards of responsible conduct.

Research from Nature Portfolio

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Corporate Accountability in Human Rights Practices publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in corporate accountability in human rights practices across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Human rights due diligence: A risk-based process through which companies identify, prevent, mitigate and account for how they address adverse human rights impacts linked to their operations.

Rightsholder-driven remedy: A participatory approach to remediation that centres the voices and agency of those harmed by corporate activities in designing and implementing remedies.

Mandatory human rights due diligence: Statutory requirements obliging companies to conduct and publicly report on due diligence efforts, with legal consequences for non-compliance.

Duty of vigilance: A legal obligation, originating in French law, requiring large firms to establish and implement plans to identify and mitigate human rights and environmental risks throughout their value chains.

Stakeholder governance: A corporate governance model that extends fiduciary duties beyond shareholders to include other parties affected by business activities, such as employees, communities and the environment.

References

1. Protect, Respect and Remedy: A Framework for Business and Human Rights. Innovations Technology Governance Globalization (2008).
2. Rightsholder-Driven Remedy for Business-Related Human Rights Abuse: Case of the Fair Food Program. Journal of Business Ethics (2023).
3. Mandatory human rights due diligence laws in Europe: A mirage for rightsholders?. Leiden Journal of International Law (2023).
4. Conceptualizing Corporate Accountability in International Law: Models for a Business and Human Rights Treaty. Human Rights Review (2020).