Empty Rituals or Workable Models? Towards a Business and Human Rights Treaty

Abstract

In this article, we do not seek to engage directly with ongoing discussions regarding the potential merits, and conversely the risks, of seeking to conclude a Business and Human Rights (BHR) treaty at all. Instead, our aim is to promote a greater focus, in the context of the BHR treaty debate, on regulatory effectiveness. That is, we believe that proposals for a BHR treaty should be assessed in terms of their likely efficacy, relative to other available forms of regulatory intervention, in advancing effective enjoyment of human rights in the business context. Whereas many contributions to the BHR treaty debate so far have explicitly or implicitly advocated one or other treaty model they have side-stepped the difficult question of how practically effective these models might be in influencing the conduct of duty bearers.

Keywords: business and human rights, treaties, regulation, ritualism, regulatory theory, treaty effectiveness, compliance