This article explores the responsibility of wind energy developers for the rights of Indigenous Peoples whose lands are affected by wind energy projects. Applying a rights-based approach and drawing on three landmark court rulings involving the struggle of Indigenous communities against the development of wind energy projects, the analysis explores the insights provided by the cases for clarifying the responsibility of business actors involved in developing such projects. It examines how Indigenous Peoples’ rights are frequently marginalized or overlooked in the planning and siting of wind energy projects and the need to respect the rights of Indigenous Peoples throughout a project in order to attain a transition that is just. Based on the analysis, we argue for a rights-based approach as the theoretical framework and analytical tool to advance justice in the green transition and a means to articulate the responsibilities of corporate actors within that context.

The concept of "meaningful stakeholder consultation" rests on a combination of elements from three fields (consultation as a legal right established in impact assessment legislation, an inclusive stakeholder definition that can be traced to business ethics, and responsible business conduct with a point of departure in theory and norms on business responsibilities for human rights and risk-based due diligence). In terms of practical and theoretical application, it is set within a fourth, impact assessment. The chapter explains the concept's legacy in these fields and provides examples drawn from several Arctic countries with extensive consultation and/or social impact assessment legislation. The chapter explains that the term "affected stakeholders" targets rights-holders whose human rights are at risk or impacted and that meaningful stakeholder consultation or engagement assumes a bottom-up approach to involve those. The chapter concludes that formal consultation rights do not by default lead to substantive involvement and experienced meaningful engagement. Attention is needed to design processes that are meaningful for affected stakeholders in order for consultations to adequately identify risks or impacts from the perspective of rights-holders. Increases in mandatory risk-based due diligence has implications for the conduct of meaningful stakeholder engagement in Arctic countries.

This article explores determinants of effective communication for crisis responses across functional sub-systems at diverse public organisation levels. That is done by analysing WHO and IPCC statements on COVID-19 and climate change, and governmental responses, drawing on Denmark as a pilot case. A functional sub-system is constituted by binary codes, embodying the sub-system’s key logic. Sub-systems respond to information triggering their logics. The analysis shows that with an emphasis on effective governance and the delivery of health care, the WHO was effective in generating governmental action on COVID-19. By contrast, the IPCC’s extensive deployment of the true/false logic of science is less effective for activating governmental response. Addressing public governance and relevance of Luhmann’s systems theory, our findings suggest that decision-makers can be prompted into action through deployment of arguments that connect to governments’ logic. This finding holds potential for improving communication between scientific and governance agencies for crisis responses. Este artículo explora los factores determinantes de una comunicación eficaz para responder a las crisis a través de subsistemas funcionales en diversos niveles de organizaciones públicas. Para ello se analizan las declaraciones de la OMS y el IPCC sobre la COVID-19 y el cambio climático, así como las respuestas gubernamentales, tomando Dinamarca como caso piloto. Un subsistema funcional está constituido por códigos binarios, que encarnan la lógica clave del subsistema. Los subsistemas responden a la información que activa su lógica. El análisis muestra que, al hacer hincapié en la gobernanza eficaz y la prestación de asistencia sanitaria, la OMS fue eficaz a la hora de generar medidas gubernamentales en relación con la COVID-19. En cambio, el amplio despliegue de la lógica de la ciencia verdadero/falso por parte del IPCC es menos eficaz para activar la respuesta gubernamental. En lo que respecta a la gobernanza pública y la relevancia de la teoría de sistemas de Luhmann, nuestros resultados insinúan que el despliegue de argumentos que conecten con la lógica de los gobiernos puede inducir a la acción a los responsables de tomar decisiones. Este hallazgo puede mejorar la comunicación entre los organismos científicos y de gobierno en las respuestas a las crisis.

This article applies Luhmann's systems theory approach to the argumentative dynamics of the processes and outcomes of key UN and EU initiatives during the decade 2002-2011 in regards to the development and acceptance of human rights responsibilities for business enterprises. That decade saw a change from rejection to welcoming of ideas on such responsibilities as a key corporate sustainability issue. Applying systems theory to these empirical cases, the article demonstrates that the systems theory perspective is capable of providing important insights on communicative aspects of a regulatory process towards a normative change in contexts with multiple and diverse interests at play. Such processes can play important roles when the transnational character of sustainability problems exceeds the nation state, and the territorial limits of national public law and the weak private-actor coverage of international law pose challenges to conventional regulation. Based on this challenge, and building on the empirical analysis, the article contributes to the emergent scholarship on how transnational sustainability issues may be governed.

This article applies Luhmann’s systems theory approach to the argumentative dynamics of the processes and outcomes of key UN and EU initiatives during the decade 2002-2011 in regard to the development and acceptance of human rights responsibilities for business enterprises. That decade saw a change from rejection to welcoming of ideas on such responsibilities as a key social sustainability issue. Demonstrating the use of systems theory to empirical cases, the article shows how the systems theory perspective generates important insights on communicative aspects of a regulatory process towards a normative change in contexts with multiple and diverse interests at play in today’s legal order where the transnational character of many sustainability problems exceeds the nation state. The article fills a knowledge gap concerning processes for governing transnational sustainability issues, where the territorial limits of national public law and the weak private-actor coverage of international law pose challenges to conventional regulation.

This article explores determinants of effective communication for crisis responses across functional sub-systems at diverse public organisation levels. That is done by analysing WHO and IPCC statements on COVID-19 and climate change, and governmental responses, drawing on Denmark as a pilot case. A functional sub-system is constituted by binary codes, embodying the sub-system’s key logic. Sub-systems respond to information triggering their logics. The analysis shows that with an emphasis on effective governance and the delivery of health care, the WHO was effective in generating governmental action on COVID-19. By contrast, the IPCC’s extensive deployment of the true/false logic of science is less effective for activating governmental response. Addressing public governance and relevance of Luhmann’s systems theory, our findings suggest that decision-makers can be prompted into action through deployment of arguments that connect to governments’ logic. This finding holds potential for improving communication between scientific and governance agencies for crisis responses. Este artículo explora los factores determinantes de una comunicación eficaz para responder a las crisis a través de subsistemas funcionales en diversos niveles de organizaciones públicas. Para ello se analizan las declaraciones de la OMS y el IPCC sobre la COVID-19 y el cambio climático, así como las respuestas gubernamentales, tomando Dinamarca como caso piloto. Un subsistema funcional está constituido por códigos binarios, que encarnan la lógica clave del subsistema. Los subsistemas responden a la información que activa su lógica. El análisis muestra que, al hacer hincapié en la gobernanza eficaz y la prestación de asistencia sanitaria, la OMS fue eficaz a la hora de generar medidas gubernamentales en relación con la COVID-19. En cambio, el amplio despliegue de la lógica de la ciencia verdadero/falso por parte del IPCC es menos eficaz para activar la respuesta gubernamental. En lo que respecta a la gobernanza pública y la relevancia de la teoría de sistemas de Luhmann, nuestros resultados insinúan que el despliegue de argumentos que conecten con la lógica de los gobiernos puede inducir a la acción a los responsables de tomar decisiones. Este hallazgo puede mejorar la comunicación entre los organismos científicos y de gobierno en las respuestas a las crisis.

The EU’s proposed Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive seeks to enhance responsible business conduct through mandatory risk-based due diligence, administrative supervision by national authorities, and civil liability. If adopted the administrative accountability and remedy scheme envisaged by the proposal will exist alongside another corporate accountability mechanism, the National Contact Points established under the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. Having two parallel systems will likely result in divergent findings on due diligence as well as remedial responses. Such inconsistency will neither benefit companies trying to understand what is expected and demanded in terms of risk-based due diligence, nor affected people who are victims of business-related societal harm. To avoid that, this article argues that a coordinated system in which NCPs are assigned some of the administrative supervision tasks envisaged by the CSDDD (or similar measures that may be introduced by states, if the CSDDD is not adopted) will serve accountability and legal certainty, including for remedy, better than two distinct systems whose overlapping competences may undermine those objectives.

Translating the implications of human rights for responsible business management requires an understanding of what human rights are and how to identify human rights risks or potential violations in management practices or with business relations. Human rights are integral to the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC): All ten of its principles either directly or indirectly address human rights. The UN Guiding Principles (UNGPs) on Business and Human Rights complement the UNGC by providing further details on the implications of human rights for business, and on how businesses should act to avoid infringing on these rights. Drawing on three cases involving on different human rights, this chapter explains how the UNGPs and the UNGC can help translate human rights concepts into managerial processes and how human rights can be taught in the management classroom. Particular emphasis is given to context and international human and labour rights that managers should know about in order to incorporate human rights in their policies and management practices.

Current understandings of ‘cleaner production’ include views that companies should act on problems involving human rights, resources, and community involvement. They should contribute to human development and social enhancement through minimization of risks to people and communities, and support their development. While theory-based knowledge on how investors may do this remains limited, some transnational business governance instruments provide guidance. This article discusses how the human rights paradox of the green transition to fight climate change can be turned into opportunities for investors to contribute to local communities hosting transition minerals mining. The analysis is based on guidance from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a major market for transition minerals or energy-related products containing such minerals, and China, the world's largest buyer and manufacturer of transition minerals, The article identifies actions for investors to cascade human rights due diligence and relevant capacity through the investment chain in ways that both limit harmful impacts and contribute beneficially to communities' human rights.

This article examines the under-researched, inter-connected issues of substantive remedy and a role for Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) National Contact Points (NCPs) to complement judicial remedy regimes involving civil liability for companies in home-state jurisdictions. Even where access to judicial procedural remedy exists, it need not ensure substantive remedy. Legal and economic resource-based power-disparities between parties can reduce victims' opportunities to present and argue their case; and courts offer limited substantive remedy options compared with the types listed by the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. The article argues that combining access to NCPs and judicial remedy offers important opportunities to address well-recognized challenges for victims' access to substantive remedy, especially with strong NCPs. NCPs can operate in ways that courts normally cannot, to help give victims voice and a choice of substantive outcome. The European Union's Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) proposal serves as a cue for the analysis. However, the issue is relevant for any OECD member or the OECD Guidelines adherent state.

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