Academic literature on the topic 'Human rights due diligence'

Globalization and increased growth in international value chains has brought great benefits to developing countries but have at the same time contributed to negative consequences related to human rights violations. Against this background and as a result of increased awareness, companies have been encouraged to take responsibility for their value chain and a framework for due diligence was adopted in 2011 with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. The UNGP introduced the first global standard of due diligence and created a non-binding framework for companies to take responsibility and to respect human rights. However, the voluntary aspect of the due diligence process has not had the desired effect as the voluntary approach has had a limited impact on preventing business-related human rights violations. This has been a factor in increasing legislative initiatives around the world, with the aim of establishing clear and binding rules to ensure responsible and sustainable business conduct. The purpose of the study is to examine the EU's legislative initiative on mandatory human rights due diligence through an ideational analysis. The further purpose is to investigate how and what the introduction of a new legislation can imply for the prevention of human rights violations in the value chain and how the accountability can be expressed. The thesis finds that the legislative initiative can be considered to have an overall positive impact to prevent and demand accountability for human rights violations in global value chains.

The thesis aims at analyzing the responsibility corporations, which are extracting valuable minerals from conflict risk and conflict affected areas, have in terms of respecting human rights. The thesis analyzes corporate responsibility mostly from a moral but also a legal perspective. In terms of the moral responsibility, the thesis has strategically chosen to examine the moral responsibility of corporations to respect human rights through the moral responsibility of their employees. The stance, that the thesis launches, is that the moral responsibility of the employees as individuals does transcend upon corporations making the business enterprise responsible for respecting human rights. The legal obligation of corporations in this matter is referred to domestic court decisions, which have ruled that corporations through business decisions have violated the human rights of affected individuals.  The theoretical framework is based on the principle of due diligence, which has proven to be crucial when incorporating management policies and risk-assessment mechanisms within the structure of corporations. Through the analysis of the Kimberley Certification Scheme, which is a state-to-state agreement with the aim to hinder conflict-diamonds from entering into the international market, a lack of due diligence framework suitable for corporations has been revealed. The scheme is flawed as it does not provide corporations extracting diamonds from conflict risk and conflict affected areas with a due diligence framework. The thesis draws the conclusion that corporations are both morally and legally responsible to respect human rights. In addition, the Kimberley Certification Scheme is a step to hinder conflict diamonds from entering into the international market. However, the scheme must be re-examined and elaborated into a framework where due diligence is included. These measures will allow corporations to operate with clear guidelines on how to extract valuable minerals in conflict risk and conflict affected areas whilst performing due diligence. Such an adjustment will allow corporations to avoid either directly or indirectly to finance actions, which could lead to human rights abuses.

Doctor Legum - LLD<br>The thesis firstly looks at how women's right to freedom from violence has developed in international (global) human rights law since the early 1990s. In this regard, the study finds that while the issue of violence against women (and women's rights generally) was barely on the international human rights agenda at the beginning of this period, an enormous degree of development has subsequently taken place. Through the adoption of documents such as General Recommendation No. 19 by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the Declaration on Elimination of Violence against Women and the Beijing Declaration and Platform of Action, international norms and standards were set regarding role of the State in providing women with protection against violence.<br>South Africa

Although women’s rights have been widely recognized in the international agenda, violence against women in the private sphere does not seem to decrease. Women are still suffering today from not enjoying the most basic human rights. States fail often to recognize domestic violence as a human rights violation because it is committed in the private sphere by non-states actors. Because of this the European Court of Human Rights decided to develop the due diligence standard in 2008 to combat violence against women. This thesis examines the European Convention on Human Rights law regarding domestic violence and the meaning of member states positive obligation and the concept of due diligence. The European Court has established that member states have several positive obligations to fulfill in order to address the issue of violence against women in the private sphere. However states fail too often to exercise the due diligence by not living up to the standards that has been established by the Court. It has been proven that the Convention articles are inconsistent. The Court needs too clarify exactly which measures states should take to address the issue of violence against women and send a clear message how much effort it takes to fill the scope of the due diligence standard. This inconsistency allows states to take stand in the law enforcements, which are contemplated to be dominated by male norms. The consequence of this is that women are usually disadvantaged in state law enforcement when it comes to violence in the private sphere. It is therefor of great importance to pay attention to women’s rights when it comes to domestic violence, as well as analyzing states approach in the domestic violence cases. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze domestic violence as men’s violence against women from a critical gender perspective by highlighting elements that effects states actions in the cases. The point of departure is to recognize similar behavior in states actions by focusing on the concept male norm and private and public sphere. The results revealed a clear pattern of the concepts. In each case signs of male norms expressed in a male position, where men are superior to women were shown. States divisions of the private and public spheres were also proven in the cases. States would prefer not to intervene when a woman was exposed to violence in the private sphere. This leads to women being suppressed and unable to reach legal protection in the private sphere.

The thesis concers the issue of conflict minerals in the Democratic republic of Congo. The situation in the country has been monitored by the NGO Global Witness for decades. Human rights violation, illicit trade followed by exporting of minerals out of the country, have been supervised by militaristic rebel groups. As a result these groups have been indirectly founded by international corporations.The aim of this thesis is to evaluate the performance of Global Witness at the agenda setting of conflict minerals, including a critical assessment of legislative measures.

Master Thesis in Business Administration Title:           Due Diligence in Cross-border M&amp;As - Top management team´s human capital affecting speed of due diligence process Authors:       Jürgen Sabernik and Matti Salakka Tutor:          Tommaso Minola, Ph.D. Date:           2018-05-21 Key Terms:   Mergers &amp; Acquisitions, Due Diligence, Speed, Cross-border, Human Capital, Top Management Team   Abstract Problem:       Globalization and market saturation are a constant influence for all the participating businesses in the markets. Therefore, companies of all various sizes are considering mergers &amp; acquisitions to either consolidate the market, use it as a market growth opportunity or entry strategy into a new market or even country. Due to these multidimensional processes, many of the attempted M&amp;As fail. Practitioners tend to focus only on financial or legal characteristics when considering to acquire and afterwards merge the target company, which results into failed M&amp;A process. Accordingly, multifaceted phenomena such as M&amp;As should not be only assessed on two dimensions, they should rather be evaluated as a whole with a dynamic due diligence process along the M&amp;A. Purpose:     The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the speed of dynamic due diligence process in cross-border mergers and acquisitions and what effect the human capital of an organization’s top management has on it. Method:     For this thesis, we utilize a qualitative research based on a multiple case study approach. Therefore, we investigated four case companies within different industries in the Finnish context. The primary empirical data was collected through semi-structured interviews with guidance from a topic guide, in addition we also used company information such as annual reports or the company websites as secondary data. The derived statements are based on the findings, which were categorized and afterwards adopted as a basis for the analysis. Findings:       The findings of this thesis are that the human capital factors affect the speed of the due diligence process in cross-border mergers and acquisitions via four themes; (1) business environment, (2) market knowledge, (3) inter-organizational leadership and (4) individual skills. The themes can affect the speed directly, but more importantly through the interplay of different themes.  Conclusion:    In conjunction with various authors mentioned in this thesis, we also come to the conclusion that a dynamic due diligence process is contributional in order to grasp the multidimensionality of mergers &amp; acquisitions. Additionally, the context where the individual M&amp;A is happening is playing a major role within the evaluation process. Hence, top management team’s human capital has an impact on the speed of dynamic DD process in cross-border M&amp;As via the four above mentioned themes.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att skapa förståelse för om och hur humankapital påverkar värderingen av kunskapsföretag vid företagsförvärv. Vidare vill vi undersöka vilka faktorer som styr humankapitalets värde. Vår teoretiska referensram grundar sig i teori om kunskapsföretag, förvärv och värdering. Vi tittar även närmare på Due Diligence och Human Resource Due Diligence som är två typer av företagsbesiktningar. Vi har valt att skapa förståelse för ämnet genom de systemorienterade teorierna. Vi har valt att utgå från en deduktiv ansats i vår uppsats. Vi har valt en kvalitativ undersökningsmetod där vi genomfört fyra semistrukturerade intervjuer med revisorer från revisionsbyråerna Revisionskonsulterna J Hägglund, PwC, EY och Akridi. Empirin har samlats in genom tre besöksintervjuer och en telefonintervju. Informationen vi samlat in via intervjuerna beskriver revisorernas syn på humankapitalets påverkan på ett företagsförvärv av kunskapsföretag. Analysen bygger på jämförelser mellan teori och empiri och jämförelser mellan empiri och empiri. Slutsatserna grundar sig i den analys som vi gjort mellan teori och empiri. Vi har kommit fram till att humankapital påverkar värderingen av kunskapsföretag vid företagsförvärv. Påverkan sker indirekt genom risken som finns i humankapitalet. Humankapitalets påverkan på den totala värderingen är i slutändan en subjektiv bedömning av värderaren eftersom det saknas metoder för att värdera humankapital.

So-called 'honour killings' have become an issue of concern for the international community. In Turkey, in particular, the practice still exists despite the adoption of the relevant human rights instruments. This study evaluates how effective current international human rights law, and in particular the recent Istanbul Convention, have been in eradicating so called 'honour killings' on Turkey. The thesis argues that the improvement of the status of women in Turkey in accordance with gender equality as well as the application of the principle of state due diligence, both requirements of the Istanbul Convention and international human rights law, are fundamental means towards eradicating the killing women in the name of 'honour'. The study looks at the application of such standards as well as the current obstacles using the feminist approaches, in particular the intersectionality approach. Through such lens, the study discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the Turkish Constitution, Turkish Civil Code, Turkish Penal Code and Law to Protect Family and Prevent VAW and questions the judicial approach to the implementation of the women's right to life. It identifies the lacunae in the Turkish legislation that allow inadequate legal protection for women and the inconsistency of the judicial approach to the definition of the so-called honour killings in the judgements. The study then recommends some concrete amendments to the relevant legal provisions in order to better reflect the international framework and the feminist approaches.