More than ten years after the adoption of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, this book critically reviews the achievements, limits and next frontiers of business and human rights following the ‘protect, respect, remedy’ trichotomy. The UN Guiding Principles acted as a catalyst for hitherto unprecedented regulatory and judicial developments. The monograph by Macchi proposes a functionalist reading of the state’s duty to regulate the transnational activities of corporations in order to protect human rights and adopts a holistic approach to the corporate responsibility to respect, arguing that environmental and climate due diligence are inherent dimensions of human rights due diligence. In the volume emerging legislations are assessed on mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence, as well as the potential and limitations of a binding international treaty on business and human rights. The book also reviews groundbreaking litigation against transnational corporations, such as Lungowe v. Vedanta or Milieudefensie v. Shell, for their human rights and climate change impacts. The book is primarily targeted at academic and non-academic legal experts, as well as at researchers and students looking at business and human rights issues through the lenses of legal studies (particularly international law and European law), political sciences, business ethics, and management. Additionally, it should also find a readership among practitioners working in the public or private sector (consultants, CSR officers, legal officers, etc.) willing to familiarize themselves with the expanding areas of liability, financial and reputational risks connected to the social and environmental impacts of global supply chains. Chiara Macchi is currently Lecturer in Law at Wageningen University & Research in The Netherlands.

In a time when multinational corporations have become truly globalised, 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 interface between the calls for corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the demands for an extension of international human rights standards. Scholars from a vast variety of backgrounds provide expert yet accessible accounts of questions of law, politics, economics and international relations and how they relate to one another, while also encouraging non-legal perspectives on how businesses operate within and around human rights. The result is an essential incursion for a wide range of scholars, practitioners and students in law, development, business studies and international studies, in this emerging area of human rights.

Human Rights and Disasters provides a comprehensive analysis of the positive obligations of States under human rights law and their potential to improve protection against disasters. Silvia Venier examines the practice of international and regional human rights supervising authorities to identify emerging positive obligations and recommendations and explores how such duties interact with other applicable norms of international law in different disaster settings.

This edited book focuses on how States should regulate activities in space and explores strategies to advance State responsible behaviour to ensure sustainable use and effective protection of outer space for peaceful purposes. The time seems ripe to bring international law into the space sustainability discourse. The concept of sustainable development was conceptualized by the 1987 Brundtland Report, Our Common Future. Today, as then, the overlap between the security, environmental and economic dimensions, including in terms of intra/inter-generational equity, is reflected within the current ‘new space’ era that is now ‘our common future’. This edited book collects original theoretical and empirical contributions. It contributes to unpack the international outer space regulatory framework in the light of current trends and pressing challenges. This offers a unique perspective and guidance thus empowering regulatory strategies for stakeholders and end-users such as scholars, policy-makers, industry and society.

Energy is the driving force of human development and economic growth. The ceaseless demand for energy resources has triggered the development of extraction projects around the world. This, in turn, has exerted a significant pressure on natural resources as well as on the environment. Since the performance of human rights depends on the environment and on access to natural resources, this Study aims to show the extent to which the negative environmental impact arising from extraction operations prevents the effective realization of human rights. The analysis of substantive and procedural human rights in the light of the case law of international human rights courts provides all stakeholders involved in an energy extraction project with the tools and mechanisms to prevent environmental damage and to ensure the protection of human rights.

A 2022 Choice Reviews Outstanding Academic Title Through a green criminological perspective, Angus Nurse examines the contemporary reality of corporate environmental crime and illegal activities that have become normalized within many major corporations. Arguably this is an inevitable consequence of a corporate culture that prioritizes profits and the smooth operation of market activities over environmental concerns coupled with the increased political power of major corporations that can act almost with impunity and where problems do occur, can literally buy itself out of trouble. These same corporations are broadly perceived as being responsible actors. However, Nurse argues that corporate environmental offending is often deliberate and that corporations understand that they will often be allowed to continue with polluting and non-compliant behavior because the likely enforcement responses are fines and settlements rather than criminal prosecution. Using several case studies, Nurse explores biopiracy and the rights of indigenous peoples, the behavior of oil companies in African states, the regulation of corporate social responsibility and corporate environmental responsibility, an analysis of contemporary environmental legislation and the prosecution of environmental harm, and state-corporate crime and air pollution. Dealing with these problems requires a wider notion of crime and wrongdoing that directly engages with the types of environmental offending that represent a threat to human populations and non-human nature irrespective of whether these are defined as crime by justice systems.

A comprehensive introduction to green criminology, this book is a discussion of the relationship between mainstream criminal justice and green crimes. Focused on environmental harm within the context of criminal justice this book takes a global perspective and Introduces students to different theoretical perspectives in green criminology Looks at the victims of environmental crime throughout Covers topics such as; wildlife crimes, animal abuse, the causes of environmental crime, regulation, exploitation, environmental activism, policing, prosecution and monitoring. Designed to help readers develop a thorough understanding of the principles of environmental justice and green criminology, as well as contemporary developments, this book will be excellent support to students of green criminology and environmental crime.

This volume examines crimes that violate environmental regulations, as part of an emerging area of criminology known as green criminology. The contributions to this book examine criminal justice concerns related to regulating and enforcing environmental laws, as well as the consequences for families and communities impacted by hazardous waste and pollution. It also describes possible strategies for deterring and preventing organized crime related to environmental regulations, including black market sales of ozone depleting substances. This innovative volume provides a criminological framework for understanding environmental harms. Examining cases from the US, Europe and Australia, this volume compares and contrasts international approaches for regulating hazardous substances, and enforcing those regulations. This work will be of interest to researchers in criminology and criminal justice, particularly interested in green criminology or environmental law, as well as researchers in environmental sciences, white collar and corporate crime, and policymakers.

Corporations have become powerful actors exerting increasing influence on society and the living conditions of individuals worldwide, including indigenous peoples. While it is recognized that corporations have a responsibility to respect indigenous peoples’ rights and the important safeguard concept of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC), it is rather unclear what such a corporate responsibility entails from a legal perspective. This doctoral thesis thoroughly analyses the regulatory framework pertaining to indigenous peoples and corporations as well as the ‘case law’ of the OECD National Contact Points (NCPs). Based on this analysis, the thesis identifies currently applied features of indigenous peoples’ rights and FPIC in relation to corporate actors, determines shortcomings in the regulatory framework and the ‘jurisprudence’ of the NCPs, and makes suggestions for possible improvements.

Nowhere is the connection between society and the environment more evident and potentially more harmful for the future of the world than in Asia. In recent decades, rapid development of Asian countries with very large populations has led to an unprecedented increase in environmental problems such as air and water pollution, solid and hazardous wastes, deforestation, depletion of natural resources and extinction of native species. This handbook provides a comprehensive survey of the cultural, social and policy contexts of environmental change across East Asia. The team of international experts critically examine a wide range of environmental problems related to energy, climate change, air, land, water, fisheries, forests and wildlife. The editors conclude that, with nearly half of the human population of the planet, and several rapidly growing economies, most notably China, Asian societies will determine much of the future of human impacts on the regional and global environments. As climate change-related threats to society increase, the book strongly argues for increased environmental consciousness and action in Asian societies. This handbook is a very valuable companion for students, scholars, policy makers and researchers working on environmental issues in Asia.