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Article

12 Nov 2007

Author:
Amy Lehr, Beth Jenkins, researchers for John Ruggie, UN Special Representative on business and human rights, in Ethical Corporation

Business and human rights – Beyond corporate spheres of influence

...[A]s companies tried to figure out what sphere of influence meant in practice and some human rights organisations advocated using the concept as a basis for attributing legal obligations to business, its limits have quickly become apparent...Influence by itself cannot serve as the basis for assigning corporate responsibility. And the concept of “sphere of influence” lumps together too many dimensions related to “influence” that require more precise articulation...[including] proximity, impact, control, benefit and political influence...The next challenge is assembling a useful analytical tool, a task for which we invite views and dialogue. Because the aim is to delineate the sphere within which companies have human rights responsibilities, rather than simply where they have influence, perhaps we should begin by reframing the concept itself as “corporate spheres of responsibility”.

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