Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Rights

Conceptualising the Corporate Human Rights and Environmental Responsibilities

Davaanyam, Otgontuya

This book offers the first comprehensive, empirically grounded analysis of how corporate human rights and environmental responsibilities are conceptualised, interpreted, and operationalised through OECD National Contact Point (NCP) case law. Moving beyond doctrinal debates, it examines 394 specific instances handled between 2000 and 2024 to demonstrate how NCP statements function as an evolving body of quasi-juridical authority that progressively shapes the meaning, scope, and content of the corporate responsibility to respect under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. Combining traditional legal analysis with systematic content analysis using MAXQDA, the book traces how norms are articulated across all dimensions of human rights due diligence: policy commitments, risk identification, prevention and mitigation, tracking, communication, remediation, and stakeholder engagement. Each thematic chapter distils key findings from the case law, highlighting both best practices and persistent shortcomings, and showing how companies navigate complex questions of causation, leverage, and corporate involvement in harm—whether through their subsidiaries, supply chains, investment relationships, or broader business structures. The book further clarifies corporate responsibilities in context: gender-based impacts, workers’ rights, Indigenous Peoples’ rights, minority protection, environmental harm, climate impacts, conflict-affected areas, and alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals. A dedicated analysis of different corporate actors—parent companies, investors, financial institutions, non-profit organisations, and state-owned enterprises—reveals distinct patterns of accountability and influence within transnational economic activity. Finally, the book turns to the state duty to protect, offering a critical examination of how home states regulate extraterritorial corporate conduct, the forms of complicity that emerge, and the regulatory measures reflected across NCP practice. The conclusion argues that, taken cumulatively, NCP statements amount to a significant and under-recognised source of normative authority: a soft-law mechanism whose interpretive influence is shaping the future direction of corporate human rights and environmental responsibility.

Exploring Corporate Human Rights Responsibilities in OECD Case Law

Davaanyam, Otgontuya; Krajewski, Markus

This open access book consolidates a collection of scholarly papers presented at the academic conference titled „Corporate Human Rights Responsibility in OECD Case Law: Actors, Issues, Responsibilities, and Remedies“, held on 4 and 5 May 2023. The conference was organized by the OECD Case Law Project at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg.
The book is divided into three sections. The first examines how NCP cases interpret corporate responsibilities, including financial institutions, on human rights and environmental issues, focusing on climate change and conflict-affected zones. It also highlights how OECD cases address corporate accountability and its impact on the revised OECD Guidelines and the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD).
The second section critically evaluates the NCP mechanism’s effectiveness, assessing whether it provides substantive remedies and how well NCP mediation resolves disputes. It offers both quantitative and qualitative analysis of the grievance processes in line with UNGP effectiveness criteria.
The third section explores the NCP’s role in global corporate responsibility frameworks, particularly its potential influence on shaping mandatory due diligence obligations through frameworks like the CSDDD, reinforcing corporate accountability in international business practices.
Additionally, the book offers key recommendations for policymakers, NCP experts, and practitioners on improving the NCP system to ensure more meaningful outcomes for human rights violations.

Internalisierung externer Kosten in globalen Lieferketten

Sachrow-Köster, Martin

Unser Konsumverhalten verursacht Externalitäten, also Kosten, die von Dritten getragen werden müssen. Maßnahmen zur Internalisierung externer Kosten sind wirtschaftswissenschaftlich gut erforscht. Auf Grundlage dieses Konzepts sind Instrumente zur kosteneffizienten Bekämpfung des Treibhausgasausstoßes entwickelt und umgesetzt worden. In diesem Buch werden Vorschläge zur Internalisierung externer Kosten als Grundlage einer juristischen Diskussion effektiver und effizienter Lieferkettenregulierung herangezogen. Dabei werden die verschiedenen Instrumente (EU-ETS, nEHS, LkSG, CSDDD, GSP+) unter dem Gesichtspunkt diskutiert, inwiefern sie in der Lage sind, effektiv externe Kosten zu internalisieren und damit die Entscheidungen von Akteurinnen und Akteuren in globalen Lieferketten zu verändern. Das Buch diskutiert die Strukturen und Anreizsysteme, die einer effizienten Lieferkettenregulierung bisher entgegen stehen und zeigt Wege auf, wie die beteiligten Akteurinnen und Akteure zu einer Verhaltensänderung animiert werden können. Die Schaffung von Transparenz zeigt sich als wesentlicher Baustein für effektiven und effizienten Schutz von Menschenrechten in globalen Lieferketten. Durch verschiedene vom Autor diskutierte Instrumente könnten sowohl Unternehmen im globalen Norden als auch Unternehmen im globalen Süden und Staaten weltweit zum effektiven Schutz von Menschenrechten beitragen.

Business and Human Rights from the Lens of Women

Pamplona, Danielle Anne; Olarte-Bácares, Carolina; Uvarova, Olena

This groundbreaking book shines a light on a critical gap in the field of Business and Human Rights: the underrepresentation of women from peripheral countries. It begins by exploring how gender perspectives have shaped the development of this field—highlighting both theoretical contributions and practical tools aligned with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Special attention is given to how women’s voices have influenced these developments. 

The book offers a unique analysis of the systemic barriers that hinder the publication and visibility of academic work produced by women from the Global South and other marginalized regions. These include challenges such as the burden of unpaid care work, language barriers, time constraints, limited economic incentives, gender-based discrimination, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, lack of access to publishing information, bureaucratic obstacles, and maternity-related interruptions. 

By foregrounding these issues, the book not only amplifies voices that are too often unheard but also calls for a more inclusive and equitable future in business and human rights scholarship.

Corporate Accountability for Human Rights Violations

Grosescu, Raluca; Dale, John G.

This edited volume is the first collection to critically explore the role, limitations, and internal fragmentation of social activism for corporate accountability across Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. It analyses a variety of NGOs, trade unions, and grassroots movements and their transnational mobilizations for holding accountable business actors involved in human rights violations and environmental degradation. The book emphasizes the diverse visions and strategies extolled by these civic actors: from civil and criminal litigations, efforts to prohibit and punish business misconduct through national and international legislation, to boycotts, and memorialization projects. By adopting an actor-focused perspective and examining their national and transnational activism, the collection provides an innovative perspective across three main themes: civil society and social movements as key drivers of corporate accountability efforts; the fragmentation of the global corporate accountability movement across ontological, ideological, regional, and professional lines; the Janus-faced paradigm of transnational activism for corporate accountability. The volume argues that corporate accountability coalitions are successful especially when social actors form alliances across borders and professional sectors. Such transnational and intersectoral engagements create counter-hegemonic discourses against corporate impunity, push for more inclusive justice projects, and multiply spaces and ideas of accountability. Yet, civil societies and social movements themselves are fragmenting over the meaning, scope, and tactics of corporate accountability due to different local, national and regional contexts, ideological variations regarding human rights and economic development, and diverse professional understandings of accountability processes.

Sports and Human Rights

Boillet, Véronique; Weerts, Sophie; Ziegler, Andreas R.

Based on a series of themes and case studies, this book aims to illustrate the impact of sports policies and practices on individuals and their identities, and to analyze the potential solutions offered by International human rights law (IHRL) for these infringements. It bridges the gap between IHRL and sports studies, and will be useful to scholars in both fields, especially those unfamiliar with each other’s work. Furthermore, by investigating the context of sport and its governance, this collection offers a series of valuable insights, enabling the development of an interpretation of ‘law in context’ for legal scholars in the field of human rights. As the governance and regulation of sport are seen as illustrations of other forms of normativity, this book also contributes to the conversation about the transnational dimension of law and legal orders. In this respect, it illustrates that normative autonomy in the field of sport, associated with the idea of lex sportiva, tends to be relative regarding IHRL. The sporting environment is not disconnected from major contemporary social issues: it constitutes a public space in which injustices can be denounced, but also the theater in which prejudices are perpetuated against various parties, such as athletes or workers. IHRL commonly addresses attacks on individual dignity and social justice issues by guaranteeing rights to individuals and offering them protection mechanisms. In this context, can IHRL solve the problems encountered in the sporting environment? This is the question that animates this volume.

Human Rights Politics – An Introduction

Krennerich, Michael

The book introduces the diversity of topics, actors, and institutions involved in human rights politics and shows how political science and related disciplines can help to organize the field of research and (more) systematically describe and examine the complex reality of human rights politics.

The book offers a comprehensive and clear introduction for students and those interested in human rights, written by a renowned human rights expert. It not only provides an introduction to the diversity of issues, actors, and institutions in human rights policy and politics, but also offers assistance and suggestions on how the complex reality of human rights politics can be described and analyzed with the help of political science and related disciplines. It deals with civil society engagement in human rights as well as State obligations and international efforts to protect human rights.

Negotiating Norms – The Right to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent in Liberia and Beyond

Rösch, Ricarda

The book explores the right to free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) – a highly controversial right. It is mainly discussed in the context of large-scale business projects on Indigenous territories but also with respect to the creation of protected areas and communities’ traditional resource rights. From a legal anthropological perspective, it attempts to disentangle the various coexisting understandings of FPIC and provide an explanation for the multiplicity of FPIC norms or – to put it in other words – its fragmentation. It examines the right- or stakeholders of FPIC, the scope of the consent requirement, the respect for self-determined decision-making, and the right to FPIC of women in different sociolegal fields. Moreover, it explores the impact of power relations, strategic alliances, and discourses within these fields and shows that the emerging FPIC norms are the result of norm negotiation processes.

The fields that are examined include transnational law – more specifically, human rights, environmental, and development law -, the Liberian post-conflict forest and land legislation, and Liberian community forests as fields in which FPIC is operationalized. Liberia is quite unique in this respect. It is not only one of the few countries in Africa recognizing FPIC but has also begun implementing it. The book shows that based on the logic of a sociolegal field, legal identities are discursively created and determine the meaning of FPIC. Moreover, different actors can resort to different legalities shaping the emerging FPIC norm.

Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation – Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights and the Constitutional Court of Korea

Hyun Jung, Lee

The book discusses discrimination based on sexual orientation in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the Constitutional Court of Korea. The work provides insights into how prohibition on discrimination based on sexual orientation can be realized in South Korea with the reference of the case law of other jurisdictions including mainly from the ECtHR. The book reviews related principles and methodological tools applied in the jurisprudence of the ECtHR. Considering that the rights of sexual minorities are evolving in many jurisdictions including Europe, and this problem is currently of great importance in the constitutional and political discussion, the topic is important to the readers in Europe as well as in Korea.

Islam, Custom and Human Rights – A Legal and Empirical Study of Criminal Cases in Afghanistan After the 2004 Constitution 

Lutforahman, Saeed

For the first time, the author has explored the intertwinement of written law, Islamic law, and customary law in the highly complex Afghan society, being deeply influenced by traditional cultural and religious convictions. Given these facts, the author explores how to bridge the exigencies of a human rights–driven penal law and conflicting social norms and understandings by using the rich tradition of Islamic law and its possible openness for contemporary rule of law standards. This work is based on ample field research in connection with a thorough analysis of the normative contexts. It is a landmark, since it offers broadly acceptable and thus feasible solutions for the Afghan legal practice. The book is of equal interest for scientists and practitioners interested in legal, religious, social, and political developments concerning human rights and regional traditions in the MENA region, in Afghanistan in particular.

Transnational Legal Activism in Global Value Chains – The Ali Enterprises Factory Fire and the Struggle for Justice

Saage-Maaß, Miriam; Zumbansen, Peer; Bader, Michael; Shahab, Palvasha

This open access book documents and analyzes the various interventions – legal, political, and even artistic – that followed the Ali Enterprises factory fire in Karachi, Pakistan, in 2012. It illuminates the different substantive and procedural aspects of the legal proceedings and negotiations between the various local and transnational actors implicated in the Ali Enterprises fire, as well as the legal and policy reforms sparked by the incident. This endeavour serves to embed these legal cases and reform efforts in the larger context of human and labour rights protection and global value chain governance. It also offers a concrete case study relevant for ongoing debates around the role of transnational approaches in making human rights litigation, advocacy, and law reform more effective. In this regard, the book interrogates and critically reflects on such legal campaigns and local and transnational reform work with a view to future transformative legal and social activism.

Sustainable Development Goals and Human Rights

Kaltenborn, Markus; Krajewski, Markus; Kuhn, Heike

This open access book analyzes the interplay of sustainable development and human rights from different perspectives including fight against poverty, health, gender equality, working conditions, climate change, and the role of private actors. Each aspect is addressed from a more human rights-focused angle and a development-policy angle. This allows comparisons between the different approaches but also seeks to close gaps which would remain if only one perspective would be at the center of the discussions.

Specifically, the book shows the strong connections between human rights and the objectives of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the United Nations in 2015. Already the preamble of this document explicitly states that “the 17 Sustainable Development Goals … seek to realise the human rights of all.” Moreover, several goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda correspond to already existing individual human rights obligations. The contributions of this volume therefore also address how the implementation of human rights and SDGs can reinforce each other, but also point to critical shortcomings of the different approaches.

EU Human Rights, International Investment Law and Participation – Operationalizing the EU Foreign Policy Objective to Global Human Rights Protection

Kube, Vivian

This book demonstrates how human rights obligations of the EU foreign constitution can be operationalized in the realm of international economic regulation. The content is divided into three major parts. The first outlines the legal foundations needed for the EU to become a shaper of international investment law, which include the general principles and objectives of EU external policies, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, international human rights, and the international investment competences of the EU. The second part demonstrates the current international investment regime’s incompatibility with human rights interests, while the third analyzes two mechanisms stemming from trade Law – ex-ante human rights impact assessments and civil society monitoring bodies – and explores whether they could mitigate the current inequalities in the protection of rights. The potential of these mechanisms, the book argues, lies in their capacity to ensure a comprehensive assessment of all interests at stake, and to empower traditionally marginalized rights-holders to make, shape, and contest the international investment regime.

Die Umsetzung der Leitprinzipien der Vereinten Nationen für Wirtschaft und Menschenrechte durch nationale Aktionspläne

Schubert, Simone

Dieses Buch widmet sich zum einen allgemein der Frage, wie internationale Vorgaben in den nationalen Bereich umgesetzt werden und untersucht zum anderen die konkrete Umsetzung der UN-Leitprinzipien durch nationale Aktionspläne. Der Begriff des „Soft Implementation Laws“ wird entwickelt und es wird aufgezeigt, welche Rolle Soft Law im Umsetzungsrecht einnimmt.

Einen weiteren Gegenstand dieses Buches bilden nationale Aktionspläne als Instrumente zur Umsetzung von internationalen Vorgaben. Im Rahmen der Untersuchung von Umsetzungsprozessen der UN-Leitprinzipien werden der deutsche, dänische und britische Aktionsplan analysiert und miteinander verglichen. Die verschiedenen Umsetzungsprozesse werden bewertet und rechtlich eingeordnet.

Human Rights in the Extractive Industries – Transparency, Participation, Resistance

Feichtner, Isabel; Krajewski, Markus; Roesch, Ricarda

This book addresses key challenges and conflicts arising in extractive industries (mining, oil drilling) concerning the human rights of workers, their families, local communities, and other stakeholders. Further, it analyzes various instruments that have sought to mitigate human rights violations by defining transparency-related obligations and participation rights. These include the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), disclosure requirements, and free, prior and informed consent (FPIC). The book critically assesses these instruments, demonstrating that, in some cases, they produce unwanted effects. Furthermore, it highlights the importance of resistance to extractive industry projects as a response to human rights violations, and discusses how transparency, participation, and resistance are interconnected.

Menschenrechtsverletzungen im Zusammenhang mit wirtschaftlichen Aktivitäten von transnationalen Unternehmen

Massoud, Sofia

Dieses Buch analysiert, ob und wie transnationale Unternehmen durch rechtliche Bindungen effektiv zur Einhaltung elementarer Menschenrechte verpflichtet werden können. Darüber hinaus werden auch die gesellschaftspolitischen Aussichten möglicher Strategien reflektiert. Das Buch zielt zwar auf alle Arten von Menschenrechten. Der Untersuchungsgegenstand ist jedoch bewusst auf die Kernarbeitsnormen der ILO beschränkt. Das Werk berücksichtigt gesellschaftsrechtlich verbundene Unternehmen ebenso wie die Möglichkeit einer Regulierung zum Schutz vor Menschenrechtsverletzungen im Zusammenhang mit wirtschaftlichen Aktivitäten von Unternehmen in globalen Lieferketten.

Das Buch untersucht privatrechtliche und völkerrechtliche Strategien. Anhand ausgewählter Ansätze kommt die Autorin zu dem Ergebnis, dass keine rechtliche Notwendigkeit für den gegenwärtigen Zustand eines defizitären Schutzes vor Menschenrechtsverletzungen im Zusammenhang mit wirtschaftlichen Aktivitäten von Unternehmen besteht. Die Autorin legt dar, dass Defizite der Diskussion auch darin bestehen, dass regelmäßig eine Reflexion der Durchsetzungschancen und -möglichkeiten der an sich notwendigen rechtspolitischen Strategien fehlt.

Human Rights and Religion in Educational Contexts

Bielefeldt, Heiner; Länemann, Johannes; Pirner, L. Manfred

What is the role of religion(s) in a human rights culture and in human rights education? How do human rights and religion relate in the context of public education? And what can religious education at public schools contribute to human rights education?

These are the core questions addressed by this book. Stimulating deliberations, illuminating analyzes and promising conceptual perspectives are offered by renowned experts from ten countries and diverse academic disciplines.

Zivil- und strafrechtliche Unternehmensverantwortung für Menschenrechtsverletzungen

Krajewski, Markus; Oehm, Franziska; Saage-Maaß, Miriam

Der Band enthält Untersuchungen zu zivil- und strafrechtlichen Konsequenzen unternehmerischen Handelns bei Menschenrechtsverletzungen. Im Zentrum stehen dabei deutsches Zivil-, Handels- und Internationales Privatrecht sowie deutsches und internationales Strafrecht. Hinzu treten Analysen des englischen und US-amerikanischen Haftungsrechts. Die Beiträge dieses Bandes fassen den aktuellen Forschungs- und Diskussionsstand zusammen und zeigen sowohl rechtspolitische Handlungsmöglichkeiten als auch weiteren Forschungsbedarf auf. Die in dem Band erörterten und analysierten Fragen sind zugleich als Ausgangspunkt und Referenzrahmen für ein besseres Verständnis und eine Weiterentwicklung des Zusammenhangs von Wirtschaft und Menschenrechten.