Rights as Usual

The starting point of most discussions on business and human rights as an academic field is the acknowledgment that there exists no international judicial mechanism equipped to deal with gross human rights violations committed by businesses in the course of their operations. Indeed, the recently adopted United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights,…

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Yesterday I was fortunate to spend the day at a conference on the business and human rights challenges  posed by mining in Colombia and Latin America organised by ABColumbia and the Human Rights Consortium, School of Advanced Studies, University of London. With the first panel bringing representatives of indigenous communities of Colombia and the Colombian…

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It is a pleasure to welcome my colleague Dr David Keane as the first guest poster on ‘Rights as Usual’.  David is the author of  Caste-based Discrimination in International Human Rights Law (Ashgate, 2007). This post is his. ***************************************************** A wave of ‘radialisation’ in India, or the manufacture of tyres using the radial design, led…

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On 6 July, the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) delivered a judgment in favour of six migrant banana workers involved in union activities against Mayan King Limited, a company that owns citrus and banana farms, in an appeal coming from Belize brought by the company. The Caribbean Court of Justice is a shared final court…

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In May this year at Middlesex we organised the screening of Bhopali, a powerful film on the terrible consequences of the explosion of the Union Carbide factory in December 1984 in Bhopal, India. On Sunday I will be running the London 10K, raising money for the Bhopal Medical Appeal, a charity that helps alleviate the…

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While for many of us the Eurovision song contest has always been just an opportunity to spend a fun night with friends, this year the contest has taken an unexpected turn. This is because it is held in Azerbaijan following the victory of the unfortunately named Eldar and Nigar with their rather insipid song Running…

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The Business and Human Rights Resource Centre is recruiting an Anglophone Southern & Western Africa Researcher & Representative, based in South Africa, to work 21 hours per week. The closing date for applications is 3 July 2012.

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On Tuesday I was invited on the TV show The Stream on Al Jazeera to discuss the recent rise in executions in the Middle East, despite strong evidence from the United Nations and organisations such as Amnesty International that the use of the death penalty is gradually decreasing worldwide, year after year. In another post…

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Amnesty International’s European Institutions Office in Brussels is offering a traineeship in the area of Business and Human Rights starting in September. Deadline for applications is 3 June.

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The Irish Centre for Human Rights recently released a report on Business and Human Rights in Ireland. It covers the business and human rights international context, the UN Guiding Principles and their significance for Ireland as well as 12 practical recommendations for the Irish government. The report is extremely well documented and contains interesting case…

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