International Business And Human Rights
International business can be defined as either private or government business activities conducted across national boundaries. These multinational corporations have brought enormous benefits, including to developing countries, such as the movement of capital, transfer of technology, training of workers, access to markets and so on. However, there are a few problems linked to the multinational corporation, either caused by the multinational companies, or the problems faced by the multinationals, including the issues concerning human rights.
Alyson Warhust wrote in BusinessWeek (December 14, 2007) that human rights are considered as a huge issue in international business due to the fact that trading with countries that mistreat their citizens are inevitable. This is considered as one of the business risks, in particular, the reputational risk. Business by itself requires high awareness of risks, taking these risks, managing them and gain profits from them. In the international area the risks are less identified, thus, more difficult to take and manage. To measure the extent of these risks, the author proposes a new tool (Maplecroft Human Rights Risk Index (HRRI), named after Maplecroft, a British research firm who develop the index tool) to help a business to identify where risks are the greatest and action is most needed.
Another article on point is a 37 page working paper written by Professor John Gerard Ruggie from Harvard Law School entitled "Business and Human Rights: The Evolving International Agenda". It is submitted that human rights issues are taking on new focus in the new millennium, where cases that violate human rights are being taken more serious than ever before. Indeed, human rights have been an issue in the international community since the beginning of time. Many bills and declarations have been written to distinguish what rights humans have by nature and what constitutes a human rights violation. This paper addresses...
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