Research On The Practice Of "Business And Human Rights" In China

The impact of Business on human rights is becoming more and more profound with the continuous development of the market economy and global economy,and makes it an age topic to avoid the serious negative human rights impacts caused by Business so that Business and human rights could develop coordinately.As the second largest economic entity of the world,China is a natural participant in this issue.Although leading countries and businesses in the world have taken action and China is more or less involved,the theoretical understanding of these practices among the various subjects is far from consistent,and the development of BHR is not smooth.On the basis of clarifying the theoretical issues,this dissertation intends to study the actual situation of China's practice of BHR in order to fulfill the corporate human rights obligations.Chapter 1 studies what is BHR,including explaining the legitimacy of the emergence of the issue BHR by analyzing the attributes of “human rights” and“business” to illustrate their intrinsic relevance;sorting out the development path of BHR in the United Nations system,which is from the draft Norms to the Global Compact,to the Guiding Principles,and then the ongoing Business and Human Rights Treaty;clarifying the important content and core concept of BHR--corporate human rights obligations,focusing on its conceptual composition and theoretical basis.Chapter 2 explains the relationship between CSR and BHR.On the one hand,through comparative analysis,this chapter finds that the background of BHR is mainly the mainstreaming trend of human rights,the challenges of multinational companies to the original theory and regulatory system,and the partial failure of CSR,and its value orientations are human rights protection and sustainable development,which are significantly different from the CSR,thus BHR is not a sub-topic or upgrade of CSR,they both are independent theories.On the other hand,the new BHR will not replace CSR,the two will be independent and coexist for a long time,and can achieve theoretical mutual assistance and practical complementarity in future development.Chapter 3 summarizes China's implementation of pillar one of the guiding principles.In terms of legislation,China has no special legislation on BHR,but there are provisions on corporate human rights obligations in the existing legislation,which mainly focus on the protection of environmental rights,labor rights and consumer rights;in terms of law enforcement,this chapter holds that law enforcement is also an important part of human rights protection,and it has the advantages of timeliness,efficiency,initiative and inclusiveness,and reviews the relevant measures adopted by the Chinese government and their effects;in addition,the National Human Rights Action Plan is an important means for the state to fulfill its human rights obligations,and this chapter provides suggestions for China to formulate its own national action plan for BHR.Chapter 4 focuses on the fulfillment of corporate human rights obligations in Chinese enterprises which proved by the cases that there are both commendable good practices and brave violations.The human rights practice of Chinese enterprises presents three characteristics: they are generally not good in understanding and ability,their motivation is changed from passive exogenous force to active endogenous force,and their actions are changed from general statement of principle to specific measures that can be operated.And its shortcomings lie in unbalanced development,the tendency to instrumentalize BHR and the opacity of information,which makes it difficult to track the effects.Since ensuring enterprises to fulfill their human rights obligations requires the joint action of the state and business,the chapter proposes promotional measures that the state and enterprises can take.Chapter 5 summarizes the remedies provided by China in the field of BHR,and discusses the new arbitration rules that Chinese enterprises may use--the Hague rules.The judicial remedy in pillar 3 of the guiding principles is slightly different from the“judicial protection of human rights” in China.China has developed a number of judicial systems that can provide remedies for human rights subjects who have been violated by business,but they are inadequate in both theory and practice and have limited effects.In view of the shortage of judicial mechanism and the advantages of non-judicial mechanism,the development of non-judicial mechanism in line with the effective standards is an important complement to pillar three.This chapter analyzes the relevant non-judicial mechanism in China,which is mainly labor arbitration and the grievance mechanism provided by enterprises and stakeholders.The chapter ends with an introduction to the background,process,and features of the Hague Rules.Chapter 6 is the conclusion.