Just Business: Multinational Corporations and Human Rights.
Wisor, Scott
Just Business: Multinational Corporations and Human Rights. By John
Ruggie. New York: W. W. Norton, 2013.
John Ruggie's book, the latest in Amnesty International's
promising Global Ethics Series, is an examination of the evolution of
norms and soft law instruments to govern the conduct of multinational
corporations. Just Business is partially autobiographical, tracing
Ruggie's time as the UN special representative for business and
human rights, but he does not lose academic rigor as a result. Ruggie
documents the reasoning and process behind the development of the
Protect, Respect, Remedy framework and Guiding Principles on Business
and Human Rights.
The book deserves reading not just by those interested in business
and human rights, but also by those who are interested in making
progress on global governance gaps more generally. Ruggie introduces the
tension between activists who desired a binding international treaty on
corporations to respect human rights, which faced challenges of
feasibility and enforceability, and a patchwork of voluntary
initiatives, which often failed to provide protection and remedy for
relevant actors. He sought to establish a third way, whereby he could
establish normative agreement with the support of governments,
international organizations, labor, and business, that would lay the
groundwork for the operationalization of those principles. The degree to
which the Guiding Principles shape formal systems of protection and
accountability in the future will be the true test of Ruggie's
mandate.
One problem that Just Business does not cover, in part because it
is often thought to be beyond the scope of the business and human rights
debate, is the degree to which revenue streams from business operations
(either by funding oppressive governments or by diverting funds from
cash-strapped governments) affect the realization of human rights.
Hopefully, other norm entrepreneurs will learn from Ruggie's
approach to tackle this and other problems in global governance.
Reviewed by Scott Wisor
