Corporate Responsibility Of Human Rights

The study of corporate human rights responsibilities originated from the concern about corporate human rights violations,and this phenomenon has become more and more common with the development of globalization and privatization.The development of enterprises brings a variety of social problems.This is not new.The traditional restriction method is that the legislative organs or administrative organs formulate relevant behavioral norms,and then the judicial organs and administrative organs pursue the legal responsibilities of enterprises.However,the development of globalization has made some multinational corporations’ economic and political capabilities and influences no less than that of small and medium-sized developing countries.Home and host countries cannot regulate or are unwilling to regulate corporate human rights violations for various reasons;privatization which makes state functions transfer to private entities such as enterprises also makes the traditional types of legal liability for investigating enterprises incapable of being constrained.In this case,the article intends to answer a series of questions: Is the human rights responsibility for preventing the state applicable to the enterprise? Which companies can be included in the scope of human rights responsibility? If a company can assume human rights responsibilities,is the human rights responsibility of the enterprise and the human rights responsibility of the state the same? If a company can assume human rights responsibilities,how should the human rights responsibility of the company be realized?The main sources of human rights are international conventions and national constitutions.Through the examination of existing international conventions and major national constitutions,it is found that the field of corporate human rights responsibility excludes mandatory rules as a whole.Only a few international treaties refer to corporate human rights responsibilities,and the language used is relatively vague,making it difficult to derive explicit mandatory responsibilities.There are not many constitutions that recognize the responsibility of enterprises for human rights,and all countries face different obstacles in the field of third-party effectiveness of basic rights.However,according to the general theory of moral obligation,the moral concern of human rights should be unconstrained,and then each subject in society has the obligation to bear such rights,and enterprises are no exception.Enterprises must respect the rights and freedoms of all those who are related to their interests,and cannot rely on their own economic superiority to infringe on the interests of vulnerable groups.This is a requirement of social justice.On the other hand,the difference in the essential attributes between the firm and the state determines that the basis for their human rights responsibilities is different.This difference in the basis of responsibility also affects the content and implementation of corporate human rights responsibilities.The innovation and achievements of the article lie in the specific analysis of the subject type,the responsibility boundary and the realization path of the human rights responsibility of the enterprise,and not just the argument for its legitimacy.When analyzing the human rights responsibilities of enterprises,we must first distinguish the types of enterprises.Of course,the ways of division can be diverse.However,once a company obtains some kind of authorization or permission from the state,its behavioral field and subject nature will change.It is easier to achieve the purpose of the article by whether the company has a specific relationship with the country.Due to the different practices of countries in this field,the types of enterprises with specific links with the state are also diverse.The article mainly analyzes the authorized enterprises,the entrusted enterprises,state-owned enterprises and private enterprises in public-private partnerships.These enterprises have obtained public functions or formed close ties with the state because they have obtained “power”,“rights” or “funds” from the state.This kind of public function makes the enterprise deviate from the complete chase in nature.The economic subject of interest,and the close relationship with the state,cannot be absolutely divided between corporate behavior and state behavior.The result of these situations is that such companies have a heavier human rights responsibility than the average company.It should be noted that the above classification is not a criterion for judging whether a company has human rights responsibilities.In the absence of state participation,enterprises can also independently commit human rights violations.However,this situation can generally be solved by the existing norm system.The accountability of human rights violations of enterprises that have no specific connection with the state can generally be investigated through ordinary legal responsibility,that is,by examining the civil liability,administrative liability and criminal responsibility of the enterprise.Punish the infringement of the enterprise and provide relief to the infringed subject.However,if ordinary law cannot resolve disputes,such as a legal gap in a human rights violation of a company,or a gap in state control,it is still necessary to consider the application of constitutional provisions or to bind enterprises within the scope of international human rights treaties.It is precisely because of the differences and connections between enterprises and the state that corporate human rights responsibility becomes a problem worthy of study in terms of content and ways of realization.The establishment of the company is to "make more money as much as possible" rather than "doing good things for the society".Therefore,enterprises should not bear the same human rights responsibilities as the state,which will violate the essential attributes of the enterprise.Judging from the various norms of the article,the first thing that can be affirmed is that,in terms of the types of human rights,enterprises do not assume obligations and responsibilities for all human rights.Although through the statistics of the complaints agency,the fact that the enterprise may infringe more human rights than the one specified in the norm,the common conclusion is that in the existing human rights system,there are human rights that the company cannot violate.This is the boundary performance of corporate human rights responsibility.Continued analysis along this line of thought reveals that there is a boundary between corporate human rights responsibilities and human rights responsibilities in terms of the types of human rights,the level of obligations included in each human right,and the subject of rights corresponding to responsibilities.The human rights responsibilities of enterprises are not determined by the territorial and sovereignty limits,nor can they be met at the three levels of respect,protection and realization.If it is reasonable to require enterprises to bear the obligation to respect human rights and to protect human rights under special circumstances,then it is not appropriate to ask them to improve their rights and increase their resources to fulfill their obligations.How to achieve this responsibility is a more complex issue than the content and boundaries of corporate human rights responsibilities.International human rights institutions and various countries have different choices.How to analyze and evaluate their practices rationally and objectively,and to combine the actual situation and power structure of corporate human rights violations in China to propose a path to achieve China’s choice is the top priority of the full text..Since the indirect realization of corporate human rights responsibility is advocated by many scholars,the article conducts a classification study on the implementation paths of various institutions and countries,including direct liability and indirect responsibility,according to whether the state is required as an intermediary in the process of responsibility realization.The specific implementation methods of direct responsibility are diverse,including the direct application of human rights clauses,indirect application,judicial model and state behavior patterns.What China is currently adopting is an indirect responsibility model.The national legislature further implements the human rights involved in international human rights treaties and constitutions into the law through legislative acts,and determines whether the enterprise has the obligation to guarantee this human rights according to the content of the rights and the characteristics of corporate behavior.This is also the main process of determining whether a company is responsible for human rights.With the legal basis,the judicial organs and administrative agencies can pursue the responsibility of enterprises in the conduct of judgments and law enforcement.The problem with this mode of implementation is very obvious,that is,the reliance on the legislative process.Therefore,on the basis of continuing to uphold this indirect responsibility through perfecting legislation,China should choose a suitable direct responsibility model and pay attention to the introduction of human rights protection clauses in the process of public-private partnership contract formulation.Specifically,China should develop the corporate human rights responsibility realization mechanism from the following aspects: improve the relevant norms on corporate human rights responsibility in the legislation,introduce the human rights protection clause of public-private cooperation contract in the form of model contract,try the indirect application of constitutional norms,and establish A human rights accountability mechanism with multiple implementations.