Should Business Have Human Rights Obligations?

Focusing on the case of multinational enterprises (MNEs), this article argues we have reason to reject assigning human rights obligations to business enterprises and their managers. The article begins by distinguishing business and human rights from the more general topic of corporate responsibility. Following Buchanan (2013), the article takes the ideal of status egalitarianism to be central to human rights. Status egalitarianism holds that all members of society stand as moral equals in relation to one another and that the state has a duty to recognize and protect that equal standing both in its dealings with citizens and in their dealings with one another. To assign human rights obligations to MNEs and their managers risks undermining this ideal. The article situates this argument in relation to the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework by discussing the way in which MNEs can be complicit in state failures to protect citizens.