Slavery can still be found in the world in the form of child labor and long low-paid hours of work. Today, almost 25 million people in the world are victims of forced labor, 71% of them, women and girls, 29% – men and boys (“Human trafficking,” 2017). Despite the legal prohibition of slavery in all world countries, the number of victims of servitude by the end of the last decade reached the highest level in history. All this would be impossible if the benefits of slave labor were not derived by respectable international companies, who locate their production in the poorest countries of the world. Millions of children are engaged in potentially dangerous work. Most are employed in the textile industry – rapidly changing fashion forces companies to look for cheap labor.
Protecting human rights from business enterprises is quite difficult since it can act outside the borders of the state. The problem is that agreements between corporations and states, the cross-border nature of corporations, and the strict integration of subsidiaries allow enterprises to create an independent actor of international relations. In the twentieth century, human rights evolved into the principle of the protection of individuals outside the national jurisdictions of states. International organizations have become one of the mechanisms of such protection. In response to the problem of human rights violations by businesses, they created U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
Many criticize the Guidelines for their advisory nature. Indeed, some large businesses often exhibit isolated human rights cases. Others are limited to legal expertise on human rights risks. Still others – corporations involved in the most high-profile violations – avoid open discussion. International law is coordinating in nature, it is characterized by a restriction of coercion and the lack of a centralized apparatus that ensures compliance with its norms. These factors make it challenging to implement norms, principles, and protect human rights successfully.
Despite efforts by the international community to protect human rights from the negative impact of business structures, one of the main challenges is the need to define the enterprise’s punishment for human rights violations. However, international legal responsibility could only be applied to a subject of international law. Since such large business entities as transnational corporations are not subjects of international law, they cannot bear such responsibility for violations of international law. If the enterprise takes place in the territory of the state, it will be responsible for the violation of human rights, since the fundamental principles are written by states and for states.
A crucial aspect of the discussion of principles on human rights and business is how they relate to the existing and established human rights system. Perhaps they can become only one of the directions for the development of this system. Depending on the effectiveness, the principles will have to adapt to the new conditions. Society does not stand still and is continuously developing, and, for this reason, there will be new threats to human rights and freedom.
Thus, the U.N. Guiding Principles are a necessary but still insufficiently effective tool to protect human rights from large business structures. The obstacle to justice is the desire of large corporations to get rich thanks to cheap labor. Mechanisms for protecting human rights in business need to be constantly developed and adapted to be effective. People need to strive to change their mentality, which will make it possible to implement all the necessary tools to protect rights without finding escape routes.
References
Human trafficking by the numbers. (2017). Human Rights First. Web.