Symposium on soft and hard law on business and human rights. Transcending the binary: Linking hard and soft law through a UnGPS-based framework convention

Abstract

Achieving respect for human rights by businesses requires not making the “right” choice between hard and soft law but establishing an architecture to sustain a constructive dialectic between the two. This essay argues that a business and human rights treaty modelled as a framework convention and centered initially on the UN Guiding Principles (UNGPs) offers such a structure while avoiding the shortcomings of treaty proposals advanced to date.