From soft law to hard law in business and human rights and the challenge of corporate power

Abstract

We introduce this symposium of articles by explaining the notions of hard and soft law, and reviewing UN developments on business and human rights in this light. We move to a more detailed discussion of existing hard law, particularly the state duty to protect, before examining examples of fulfilment of that duty via the domestication (especially the judicialization) of human rights norms for business. We also note the many pitfalls in contemporary approaches, before examining how the proposed legally binding instrument might address those pitfalls. We conclude with commentary on how soft and hard norms to date have failed to grapple with corporate power, the issue which animates the need for a business human rights debate in the first place, before introducing the articles to follow.