Multinational Enterprises and Labour Rights : Concepts and Implementation

The responsibility of multinational enterprises to respect labor rights in global operations has been widely discussed in the corporate social responsibility and business ethics literature. Since the adoption of the UNGP in 2011, legal scholars are formalizing this discussion around the legal concept of corporate human rights due diligence. This contribution outlines these legal trends for labor rights and introduces the idea of “corporate labor rights due diligence”. It presents the comparative transnational case-law as well as recent legislative developments on multinational enterprises due diligence and labor rights. It also brings some ideas for interdisciplinary research and some limits of the contemporary discussions on multinational enterprises and labor rights