The Business of Human Rights: An Evolving Agenda for Corporate Responsibility

Voiculescu, Aurora and Yanacopulos, Helen eds. (2011). The Business of Human Rights: An Evolving Agenda for Corporate Responsibility. London, England: Zed Publishers.

URL: http://www.zedbooks.co.uk/paperback/the-business-o...

Abstract

In a time when Multinational Corporations have become truly globalized, demands for global standards on their behaviour are increasingly difficult to dismiss. Work conditions in sweatshops, widespread destruction of the environment, and pharmaceutical trials in third world countries are only the tip of the iceberg. This timely collection of essays addresses the grey area between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) - the voluntary and unenforceable attempts at self-regulation by the industry - and demands for an extension of international Human Rights standards. Scholars from a vast variety of backgrounds provide accessible accounts of questions of law, politics, economics and international relations and how they relate to one another, whilst also encouraging non-legal perspectives on how businesses operate within and around human rights.