Human Rights as a Critique of Instrumental CSR : Corporate Responsibility Beyond the Business Case

In his widely influential human rights framework, the former special representative for business and human rights, John Ruggie, establishes a responsibility to respect human rights for all corporations. He does so based on an instrumental account of corporate responsibility. In this paper I will systematically explore and expose the conceptual flaws underlying such instrumental arguments, specifically when invoked in connection with human rights responsibility. I will outline four relevant situations, which stake out the scope of such business case arguments in the context of
human rights. Based on the analysis of those four situations, I will argue that Ruggie's instrumental defense of the corporate responsibility to respect human rights fails. While a genuinely moral argument in favor of corporate human rights responsibility would be more plausible, it implies corporate responsibilities beyond merely respecting human rights and thus challenges the framework's rigid division of responsibility between corporation and state.