Information and AccountabilityRegulating the Corporate Social Responsibility to Respect Human Rights through Ranking and Reporting

Abstract

This chapter argues that regulation can occur through rankings and reporting by providing information about risks to rights allowing concerned citizens to exercise informed choice. This chapter examines the emergence and evolution of selected ranking and reporting frameworks in the expanding realm of business and human rights advocacy. Specifically, it examines how indicators in the form of rankings and reports evaluating the conduct of transnational corporate actors can serve as regulatory tools with potential to bridge a global governance gap that places human rights at risk. It explains the conditions that have led to coordination and collaboration among those entities engaged in creating reporting frameworks and rankings while nevertheless relying upon the competitive impulses of the business enterprises being ranked to assert influence. It also identifies why the businesses being ranked have been slow to deploy effective counterstrategies despite efforts to contest emerging reporting requirements. It considers the interaction of selected business and human rights indicators with recent laws regulating supply chain transparency in the United States and with recent global policy initiatives calling for business enterprises to conduct human rights impact assessments. It reviews some of the methodological and moral risks raised with respect to ranking rights. In conclusion, the chapter argues that in the ecology of global governance, these new business and human rights indicators will provide rights advocates with greater power and have the potential to play an important role in solidifying emerging soft law standards and in strengthening corporate self-regulation. The strategic use of indicators in the business and human rights realm could ultimately prove to make the commitments contained in voluntary codes of conduct to respect human rights obligatory.