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Article

24 Sep 2015

Author:
Larry Catá Backer, Pennsylvania State University, on Law at the End of the Day (USA)

Incorporation of UN Guiding Principles into contracts is hardening soft law into binding obligations, say academics

“John Ruggie and John Sherman on "Adding Human Rights Punch to the New Lex Mercatoria: the Impact of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights on Commercial Legal Practice"”, 16 Sep 2015

Law and legal practice continue to change…in the wake of the emergence of regulatory regimes beyond the state…[T]he UN Guiding Principles have become an influential and increasingly normative framework around which business organizes and gauges its behavior within global production streams…John Ruggie and John Sherman have recently posted a very useful essay…:  Adding Human Rights Punch to the New Lex Mercatoria: the Impact of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights on Commercial Legal Practice…That essay situates this fundamental shift both in the context of a lawyer's role in global transactions and as an evolution toward a governance environment in which contracts increasingly incorporate significant governance elements…hardening soft law into binding obligation among economic actors…As large trade organizations begin to incorporate the UNGP [into] their basic contract terms, the norms that shape expectations of corporate behavior will change with them, and with that change law will follow…[Refers to FIFA]