New Instruments for Human Rights Protection in Globalization

Abstract

The Ruggie principles have given new impulse to the process of developing and modernizing International Lawthrough the influence of human rights. However, this process has been developed as “soft law” measuresincluded in the corporate social responsibility activities of multinational companies, which academic opiniondeems has lessened the capacity of human rights for transforming international law into more effective and trulybinding instruments to avoid abuses against human dignity. This issue has prompted a debate concerning the roleof multinationals as subjects of international law, and the advisability of returning to more traditional andconservative approaches to governance of globalization and to effective protection of human rights from riskybusiness activities. However, thanks to Common Law traditions, this model may be transformed into binding rules,using the legal tools of private Law. This reveals the utility of such soft Law regulations in creating cultures ofrespect useful when rule of law is weak to rule relations between states, companies and people, that arise fromthe actions of private individuals rather than the activity of public law-making institutions.

Keywords

• Human Rights protection
• globalization
• multinational companies
• governance
• International Business
• social responsibility