Abstract/Summary

The international community has, for over 40 years, been attempting to determine the legal obligations of corporations in relation to fundamental rights. The various initiatives that have been taken have all been seeking to address a recent reality: corporations no longer operate within one jurisdiction and have the capacity to cause serious harms in a range of jurisdictions. The special representative of the secretary general - Ruggie - was appointed in 2005 by the United Nations specifically to address the nexus of business and human rights in a globalised world. In laying out his three-pronged Framework proposal in 2008, he recognised that globalisation had caused a "governance gap" in the world.