Law Commons^™

Legal Primer: Respecting The Human Rights Of Communities In Wind And Solar Project Deployment, Sarah Dolton-Zborowski, Sam Szoke-Burke

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

As a companion to the Business Guide, the Legal Risk Primer is geared towards general counsels and corporate legal teams, as well as internal and external stakeholders. It provides an overview of the wide range of potential legal risks for wind and solar energy companies associated with community-related adverse human rights impacts. The legal risks outlined arise from home and host government laws, community litigators, financiers, and power purchase agreements.

Together, these two resources support wind and solar energy companies – as well as external stakeholders seeking to influence companies, including investors, civil society organizations, and project-affected communities – …

Business Guide: Respecting The Human Rights Of Communities In Wind And Solar Project Deployment, Sarah Dolton-Zborowski, Sam Szoke-Burke

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Companies involved in commercial wind and solar projects are facing heightened scrutiny of their human rights performance. This Business Guide provides companies with information and strategies to identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for adverse human rights impacts that they cause, contribute to, or are directly linked to through their operations, products, or services by virtue of their business relationships. It may also be useful for investors, business partners, government actors, civil society organizations, communities, and other stakeholders.

Drawing on the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights, the Guide provides practical recommendations, with over 40 examples from peer companies …

The Consumer Imaginary: Labor Rights, Human Rights, And Citizen-Consumers In The Global Supply Chain, Kevin Kolben

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Consumers are increasingly demanding that the goods and services they consume be produced in a way that meets their social expectations. By extension, they are exhibiting greater willingness to pay more at the cash register for products made in good working conditions, and they are willing to punish companies that do not satisfy these expectations. Driving these "citizen-consumers" is what this Article terms the "consumer imaginary," which is defined as the narratives that consumers tell themselves about the people that make their things--people whom consumers will likely never meet, and whose lived experiences are distant from their own. Policymakers have …

Migrant Workers In The United States: Connecting Domestic Law With International Labor Standards, Lance Compa

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Industry and trade associations say that the United States needs more immigrant workers to meet labor shortages and keep the economy growing. Labor advocates counter that the alleged labor shortage is a myth, and that employers’ real goal is to replace American workers and put downward pressure on wages of U.S. workers. The United States needs a new immigration policy that balances the needs of companies and the overall economy with needs for high labor standards and protection of workers’ rights. International labor and human rights instruments address several migrant labor issues, but U.S. law and practice fall short of …

Sexual Labor And Human Rights, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol, Jane E. Larson

Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

In this Article, we engage the current human rights debate that dichotomizes prostitution either as a modern form of slavery or as the exercise of the right to work. This framework effectively sets up a coercion/consent polarity. These poles raise fundamental human rights issues; both the prohibition against slavery and the right to work are matters addressed by and central to the international human rights paradigm. Yet we argue in this Article that the human rights issues raised by prostitution cannot properly be studied nor moved towards meaningful resolution in the context of the prevailing polarity. Prostitution in its current …

Public Sector Labor Policy: A Human Rights Approach, Robert Hebdon

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Beyond Labor Rights: Which Core Human Rights Must Regional Trade Agreements Protect?, Stephen J. Powell, Trisha Low

UF Law Faculty Publications

As World Trade Organization ("WTO") Members relentlessly pursue new regional trade agreements to achieve even faster economic growth than the extraordinary numbers posted by global trade rules, the smaller number of parties and their greater cultural affinity have led negotiators to address the intersection of trade and human rights to an extent unparalleled in the culturally disparate and near-unmanageable, 150-plus member WTO itself. These new provisions have used trade's huge power to improve worker rights, secure environmental protections, and make initial inroads toward defending indigenous populations from trade's adverse effects. Employing the perspectives both of trade negotiators and students of …

...And The Twain Shall Meet?, Lance A. Compa

Lance A Compa

[Excerpt] No country or company should gain a commercial edge in international trade by jailing or killing union organizers, crushing independent union movements, or banning strikes. Gaining an advantage in labor costs should not depend on exploiting child labor or forced labor, or discriminating against women or oppressed ethnic groups. Deliberately exposing workers to life-threatening safety and health hazards, or holding wages and benefits below livable levels should not be permissible corporate strategies. But these are exactly the abuses that happen all too often in a rapidly globalized world trading system based on "free trade."

International Labor Rights And The Sovereignty Question: Nafta And Guatemala, Two Case Studies, Lance A. Compa

Lance A Compa

[Excerpt] Labor rights advocates in the United States and allied organizations abroad attempting to establish international fair labor standards run up against traditional notions of sovereignty in formulating national labor policies and development strategies. In the same way that entrenched sovereignty principles gradually yielded to international human rights claims after World War E, sovereignty is now being challenged by claims of international laborrights in the field of employment standards and industrial relations. This Article seeks to illuminate this challenge to sovereignty in two case studies of labor rights advocacy. Part I sets the stage with an overview of the growing …

Stop Sending Mixed Signals To General Pinochet, Lance A. Compa

Lance A Compa

[Excerpt] We should not apologize for U.S. enforcement of the new labor rights laws against Chile. Critics have attacked them as "backdoor protectionism" aimed at keeping out foreign products. U.S. unionists, though, report a genuine enthusiasm among their rank-and-file members, not for the prospect of shutting out foreign goods but the hope of better pay and working conditions for their foreign counterparts.

Human Rights And The Global Economy: The Centrality Of Economic And Social Rights, Marley S. Weiss

Marley S. Weiss

No abstract provided.

The Challenges Of Change: Causes And Consequences Of Child Labor In China, Andrea Morley

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The government of China opened its doors to the global economy in the late 1970s, with gradually but steadily increasing competition, trade, and production. The ‘Asian Tiger’ was fueled by export-led development as the number of factories and production facilities spread rapidly across the country. This rapid economic growth exacerbated labor violations, primarily due to the increased incentives for profits and demands of production on Chinese factories. In order to be more competitive, China required a strong labor force; its citizens were thrust into the global economy.

Human Rights And The Global Economy: The Centrality Of Economic And Social Rights, Marley S. Weiss

Maryland Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Labor Union Coalition Challenges To Governmental Action: Defending The Civil Rights Of Law-Wage Workers, Maria Ontiveros

Maria L. Ontiveros

(This paper is a working draft, which will be published in final form by the University of Chicago Legal Forum, Vol. 2009.)

The article examines international and domestic legal challenges filed by traditional labor unions, in coalition with others, against the government of the Unites States of America. The article argues that these lawsuits can help protect the civil rights of low-wage workers by creating a coherent legal theory defending the civil rights of low-wage workers and by creating an identifiable change agent to work on that defense. The lawsuits include those challenging governmental action with respect to immigrant workers, …

...And The Twain Shall Meet?, Lance A. Compa

Lance A Compa

[Excerpt] No country or company should gain a commercial edge in international trade by jailing or killing union organizers, crushing independent union movements, or banning strikes. Gaining an advantage in labor costs should not depend on exploiting child labor or forced labor, or discriminating against women or oppressed ethnic groups. Deliberately exposing workers to life-threatening safety and health hazards, or holding wages and benefits below livable levels should not be permissible corporate strategies. But these are exactly the abuses that happen all too often in a rapidly globalized world trading system based on "free trade."

Corporate Social Responsibility And Workers’ Rights, Lance A. Compa

Lance A Compa

[Excerpt] Corporate social responsibility (CSR) brings an important dimension to the global economy. CSR can enhance human rights, labor rights, and labor standards in the workplace by joining consumer power and socially responsible business leadership—not just leadership in Nike headquarters in Oregon or Levi Strauss headquarters in California, but leadership in trading house headquarters in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and leadership at the factory level in Dongguan and Shenzhen. Ten years ago, I would not have said this. I viewed corporate social responsibility and corporate codes of conduct as public relations maneuvers to pacify concerned consumers. Behind a facade of …

The Promise Of Economic Rights And The Welfare State, Zehra F. Kabasakal Arat

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Labour Left Out: Canada’s Failure to Protect and Promote Collective Bargaining as a Human Right. By Roy Adams. Ottawa: Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives, 2006.

and

The Welfare State Nobody Knows: Debunking Myths about U.S. Social Policy. By Christopher Howard. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007.

and

Economic Rights in Canada and the United States. Edited by Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann and Claude E. Welch Jr. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.

Toward A Vibrant Peruvian Middle Class: Effects Of The Peru-United States Free Trade Agreement On Labor Rights, Biodiversity, And Indigenous Populations, Stephen J. Powell, Paola A. Chavarro

UF Law Faculty Publications

Past research confirms that trade and human rights are inextricably linked by trade's effects on poverty, labor, women, indigenous populations, health, and the environment. We identified surprisingly direct linkages between these two vital policies in WTO agreements as well as that regional trade agreements add positive indirect contributions by to rules-based governance through their emphasis on transparency, accountability, and due process by governments, as well as timeliness, inclusive record keeping, and impartiality in the administrative decisional process. The present research examines a particular country and a single trade agreement, Peru and the trade agreement between Peru and the United States. …

Labor’S Human Rights: A Review Of The Nature And Status Of Core Labor Rights As Human Rights, Roy J. Adams

Human Rights & Human Welfare

© Roy J. Adams. All rights reserved.

This paper may be freely circulated in electronic or hard copy provided it is not modified in any way, the rights of the author not infringed, and the paper is not quoted or cited without express permission of the author. The editors cannot guarantee a stable URL for any paper posted here, nor will they be responsible for notifying others if the URL is changed or the paper is taken off the site. Electronic copies of this paper may not be posted on any other website without express permission of the author.

Sexual Labor And Human Rights, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol, Jane E. Larson

UF Law Faculty Publications

In this Article, we engage the current human rights debate that dichotomizes prostitution either as a modern form of slavery or as the exercise of the right to work. This framework effectively sets up a coercion/consent polarity. These poles raise fundamental human rights issues; both the prohibition against slavery and the right to work are matters addressed by and central to the international human rights paradigm. Yet we argue in this Article that the human rights issues raised by prostitution cannot properly be studied nor moved towards meaningful resolution in the context of the prevailing polarity. Prostitution in its current …

Are Workers Rights Human Rights And Would It Matter If They Were?, Richard Mcintyre

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Slaves to Fashion: Poverty and Abuse in the New Sweatshops by J.S. Ross. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004. 396pp.

and

Can Labor Standards Improve Under Globalization? by Kimberly Ann Elliott and Richard B. Freeman. Washington: Institute for International Economics, 2003. 175pp.

An American Tragedy: The Decline Of U.S. Unionism And Its Human Rights Implications, Peter Zwiebach

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Unfair Advantage: Workers' Freedom of Association in the United States under International Human Rights Standards by Lance Compa. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004. 220pp.

International Trade And Workers’ Rights: Practical Tools For Reading Labor Rights Provisions Of Free Trade Agreements, Benjamin Holt, Michael Waller

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

Inter-American Court Of Human Rights Amicus Curiae Brief: The United States Violates International Law When Labor Law Remedies Are Restricted Based On Workers' Migrant Status, Sarah H. Cleveland, Beth Lyon, Rebecca Smith

Faculty Scholarship

Immigrant workers in the United States of America are among the most poorly paid and poorly treated in the workforce. Amici’s attempts to protect the rights of immigrants, including unauthorized workers, have been severely hampered by domestic U.S. laws that discriminate on the basis of alienage and immigration status, and especially by a recent decision of the United States Supreme Court in Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Inc. v. National Labor Relations Board, 535 U.S. 137 (2002).

Immigrant workers in particular employment-related visa categories are explicitly excluded from the protections of certain U.S. labor and employment laws. So, too, immigrant workers …