Rights as Usual

This post is by Dr Debadatta Bose, postdoctoral scholar at the Berkeley Center for Private Law Theory.

Readers of Rights as Usual are well-versed in the complex dance between human rights and economic regulations, where normative priorities often clash. To explore some of these tensions, the NNHRR Business and Human Rights Working Group, held a one-day symposium on ‘Human Rights Reactions to Economic Laws’. The inspiration behind the symposium came from the challenge of the assumption of conflict between these two, so we were interested in the mutual ‘shaping’ of one by the other. Our central question was: How are human rights shaping economic laws, and how do economic laws influence human rights?

Following the symposium, we are excited to launch a new blog series, building on last year’s exploration of questions of ‘Colonisation in, of and through Business and Human Rights’. This year’s blog series explores in detail specific questions explored in the symposium. The series kicks off with Jennifer de Lange’s thought-provoking challenge to the assumed ‘tension’ between human rights and economic laws. She reveals how human rights have found an unexpected ally in EU financial regulations. Through an analysis of the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, the EU Taxonomy Regulation and more, she illustrates that human rights have been slipping into regulations, embedding obligations for the financial sector and other corporate entities through smaller but numerous measures.

Next, we have Carlos Portugal Gouvêa exploring a more fundamental question of how Ruggie’s exclusion of civil society monitoring in his theoretical underpinnings of the UNGPs may have undermined its revered three-pillar structure. He explores how the UNGPs, shaped by Ruggie’s liberal view of the public/private divide eventually ended up marginalising civil society in the scheme of the UNGPs while presuming an important role outside the scheme for the three-pillar scheme to work.

This blog series will continue with two posts at regular intervals, tackling exciting questions like those above within the general theme of human rights reactions to economic laws. Many posts will zoom in on sectors like finance and property and address specific circumstances such as poverty and human rights, offering unique perspectives. They will provide us a glimpse of economic laws from a human rights perspective and human rights from an economic laws’ perspective. The symposium aimed to bridge human rights and economic narratives, and this blog series brings those vibrant discussions to life. Join us on this intellectual journey and stay tuned for more insightful posts!