Reconciling Human Rights and supply chain management through corporate social responsibility

The negative impact on human rights by business activity has been the focus of much academic and public policy debate. In no other field of law has the stubbornness of the public and private law divide been exposed more starkly and with such devastating effects for individuals. Much of the current debate is framed in terms of the intersection between human rights law and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), each of which is associated with a distinct legal field, the former with public international law and the latter with private law. In this contribution we aim to identify the primary challenges at the intersection between human rights and business by dissecting specific legal barriers in the public international law and private international law systems. It is intended that by clarifying the most significant barriers in each field, commonalities across the fields will be determined and coordinated responses to overcoming these barriers offered in order to develop a stronger response to human rights abuse by business.