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http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/s10551-015-2869-9&domain=pdf
Web End = J Bus Ethics (2016) 136:699714 DOI 10.1007/s10551-015-2869-9
http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/s10551-015-2869-9&domain=pdf
Web End = Public Regulators and CSR: The Social Licence to Operate in Recent United Nations Instruments on Business and Human Rights and the Juridication of CSR
Karin Buhmann1,2
Received: 28 February 2014 / Accepted: 22 September 2015 / Published online: 5 November 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015
Abstract The social licence to operate (SLO) concept is little developed in the academic literature so far. Deployment of the term was made by the United National (UN) Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the UN Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework, which apply SLO as an argument for responsible business conduct, connecting to social expectations and bridging to public regulation. This UN guidance has had a signicant bearing on how public regulators seek to inuence business conduct beyond Human Rights to broader Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) concerns. Drawing on examples of such public regulatory governance, this article explores and explains developments towards a juridication of CSR entailing efforts by public regulators to reach beyond jurisdictional and territorial limitations of conventional public law to address adverse effects of transnational economic activity. Through analysis of an expansion of law into the normative framing of what constitutes responsible business conduct, we demonstrate a process of juridication entailing a legal framing of social expectations of companies, a proliferation of law into the eld of business ethics, and an increased regulation by law of social actors or processes.
Keywords CSR transparency and reporting EU and
CSR Juridication of CSR OECD Guidelines for
Multinational Enterprises Social licence to operate
Politicization of business UN Guiding Principles on
Business and Human Rights UN Protect, Respect and
Remedy Framework
Introduction
Evolving in the extractives eld as an issue of considerable practical relevance to business operations (Prno and Slocombe 2012; Owen and Kemp 2013; Burke et al. 2011; Nelsen 2006), the social licence to operate (SLO) concept has spread to CSR practices and theory more generally. A clear example is offered by two recent instruments that provide guidance for both rms and states as regards business and human rights: the UN Guiding Principles (UNGP) on Business and Human Rights (UN 2011) and their predecessor, the 2008 UN Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework...