Business and Human Rights

I'm looking at "Business and Human Rights," a new book by Florian Wettstein. With a mammoth title like that: what more specific can we say about its subject?

Well, apparently the subject named in that title, BHR for short, is an academic discipline now, encompassing ethical, legal, and managerial perspectives. And this new book is intended as a textbook, for use in BHR courses.

The author, Wettstein, is a luminary in the field. He is the editor-in-chief of the Business and Human Rights Journal, apparently published out of Switzerland, where Wettstein is a professor at St Gallen University.

There is another body of literature about "corporate social responsibility" or CSR, but Wettstein seems to be eager to consider CSR and BHR separately, and to consider BHR (as the title of the book hints) at much more length.

Here is a random quote from the book's discussion of indigenous peoples around the world as examples of targets of corporate nastiness.

"The UN has had the protection of Indigenous peoples on the agenda since the 1950s. In 1957, the ILO adopted the ILO Convention on Indigenous and Tribal Populations and in 1986 ILO Convention No,. 169.... In 2000, the UN established the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) and one year later appointed the first Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Indigenous People. A further, major achievement was the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in the year 2007."

Now THAT is fact thickness. I admire it.

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