Are we speaking the same language?

Abstract

Over the last several years, notions of corporate social responsibility and corporate responsibility for human rights have developed on several fronts, including under international human rights law, through voluntary initiatives and in the discourse and the reporting of the corporations themselves. But are all protagonists on all these fronts speaking the same language? Are these developments truly improving the realisation of human rights? This study has indicated that multinational corporations are using the language of human rights and corporate social responsibility perhaps more than expected. It also discovered that some corporations are taking measures that have a distinctly positive effect on the realisation of human rights. Strangely enough, however, these two trends did not necessarily seem to be connected. These trends demonstrate that corporations may be using the same words as human rights lawyers and advocates when it comes to corporate responsibility for human rights, but the two groups are still some way from speaking the same language.