The Governance Gap: Extractive Industries, Human Rights, and the Home State Advantage: 9 (Routledge Studies in Governance and Change in the Global Era) - Hardcover

Simons, Penelope; Macklin, Audrey

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0415334705 ISBN 13: 9780415334709

Publisher: Routledge, 2014

Synopsis

This book explores the persistence of the governance gap with respect to the human rights-impacting conduct of transnational extractive corporations operating in zones of weak governance.

The authors launch their account with a fascinating case study of Talisman Energy’s experience in Sudan, informed by their own experience as members of the 1999 Canadian Assessment Mission to Sudan (Harker Mission). Drawing on new governance, reflexive law and responsive law theories, the authors assess legal and other non-binding governance mechanisms that have emerged since that time, including the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. They conclude that such mechanisms are incapable of systematically preventing human rights violating behaviour by transnational corporations, or of assuring accountability of these actors or recompense for victims of such violations. The authors contend that home state regulation, while not a silver bullet, has a crucial role to play in regulating such conduct. They pick up where UN Special Representative John Ruggie’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights left off, and propose an innovative, robust and adaptable template for strengthening the regulatory framework of home states. Their model draws insights from the theoretical literature, leverages existing public, private, transnational, national, ‘soft’ and hard regulatory tools, and harnesses the specific strengths of state-based governance.

This book will be of interest to academics, policy makers, students, civil society and business leaders.

About this title

Review:

"The authors are to be congratulated. They have produced a well-argued, thoughtful and innovative treatment of a vitally important subject. Their work is a welcome intervention in the important ongoing search for meaningful corporate human rights and environmental accountability in the vulnerability-deepening conditions of contemporary globalisation."

 -Anna Grear, Professor of Law, Cardiff Law School - Human Rights Law Review

Synopsis:

This impressive book examines human rights in war zones - especially where the interests of international corporations seem to be placed ahead of individuals' rights. Respected academics examine the track records of household name corporations with revealing results.

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0415334705
• ISBN 13: 9780415334709
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 422