Juridifying Corporate Social Responsibility Through Public Law: Assessing Coherence and Inconsistencies against UN Guidance on Business & Human Rights

With a point of departure in the United Nations (UN) Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the UN (‘Ruggie’) Framework on Business and Human Rights this article shows that recent developments with the UN and the OECD and some legislative EU and national State activities constitute steps in a process of juridifying CSR through public law. It demonstrates that the formalisation of business responsibilities for human rights, which emerged with the two UN instruments, is having an impact on public regulation of CSR in a more general sense. Another current in public regulation of CSR is offered by the EU’s approach to regulating sourcing of natural resources through a combination of law and the market, including due diligence requirements on business and the EU's new Non-Financial Reporting Directive. Identifying inconsistencies and ensuing challenges, the article demonstrates that coherence in public law regulation of business impact on society warrants attention in order to ensure legal certainty and effective regulation based on alignment between the different currents of public regulation of CSR.