Making and Breaking the Rules in Business and Human Rights

How do we make corporations accountable for human rights violations? This book illuminates how governments, international organisations, NGOs and individuals make (and break) the rules in business and human rights. It covers a rich array of examples of rule-making in business and human rights, including: (i) legal developments in domestic courts in the US, Canada, the UK, and Europe; (ii) initiatives endorsed by the United Nations, including the 2011 UN Guiding Principles; and (iii) multistakeholder initiatives such as the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS), the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), and the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights (VPs). It also introduces a new theoretical framework to assist scholars in understanding trends in the area of business and human rights. By emphasising implementation, the framework brings much-needed conceptual clarity to the processes of rule-making and legalization and constitutes an important contribution to the business and human rights literature.

Claire H. Palmer is a barrister in Sydney, Australia who specialises in public and commercial law. She completed her doctorate in international relations at the University of Oxford, which she attended on a Clarendon Scholarship. Claire also holds a BCom (Hons I) and LLB (Hons I) from the University of Sydney, where she was awarded the Henry S. Albinski Prize for Best Honours Thesis in Australian Foreign and Defence Policy. In 2017, Claire was the inaugural recipient of the Katrina Dawson Award, which aims to encourage young women to practise at the Sydney bar.