Although the Framework is a definitive step forward in the dialogue about corporate accountability, it is severely undermined for the following reasons. First, the Framework imposes no new legal obligations upon corporations, and leaves these non-State actors to determine themselves what human rights may be material to their business. Second, by emphasizing the State's role in protecting their populations from harm, the Framework fails to consider situations where States cannot or will not enact domestic regulation that protects human rights. Third, from the corporate perspective, relegating legal obligations to States alone provides for complex regulatory systems where corporate operations are subject to differing legal standards depending on their field of operation and thus produce inefficiency affecting the corporate bottom line. Fourth, the Framework does no more than add to the current regime of voluntary corporate codes, which alone are insufficient to regain the needed political governance of economic globalization. The authors suggest that The Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights be used as a foundation to establish accountability and to bring corporate actors out of their legal grey zones.

Along with the Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework, Ruggie has also issued Guiding Principles to assist governments and corporations in the implementation of the framework. While these principles contain positive elements, they fall short of creating an effective mechanism for addressing the many corporate human rights violations that continue by not providing a remedy in the international arena when national systems are unavailable or ineffective.

Corporate accountability is an enormous challenge that cannot be effectively dealt with through existing methods. A truly successful process would involve the creation of binding legal mechanisms that mandate oversight of corporations. These mechanisms should also provide effective redress for victims of corporate human rights abuses.

(This report was one of two policy papers distributed at the July 2011 session of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation on steps toward business and human rights reforms at the U.N. It is available in full text at: http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/iez/08264.pdf)

This article provides a brief introduction to those cases in which courts have been asked to look at international human rights standards for guidance in cases affecting economic, social and cultural right, and it discusses the use of customary international law in the United States. It criticizes the prevailing view in the United States that economic, social and cultural rights are not part of customary international law and provides overwhelming evidence that many of these rights are universally accepted. It examines that body of international human rights law that prescribes, as a basic tenet, equal opportunity to education, it asserts that this tenet has risen to the level of customary international law that is binding on United States, and it argues that international standards should be used to persuade state courts that there is a right to equal opportunity to education under state constitutions. Finally, it examines the theories being developed for establishing a federal right to equal educational opportunity, and it argues that application of international standards would be useful in developing those theories and would yield a different result from that reached in Rodriguez. It maintains that the use of human rights law could help change the focus of the discussion, which up to now has highlighted the right to education rather than the right to equal opportunity to education.

This article begins by describing the major substantive provisions and enforcement mechanisms of both treaties. It then discusses the legal standards affecting use of treaties in litigation and includes an analysis of the doctrine of self-executing treaties as well as the validity of the reservations, understandings, and declarations attached to the ratification of both treaties. It concludes by analyzing what effect the treaties can have on the specific constitutional issues affecting affirmative action.

The review concludes that Revolt or Revolution will be of likely interest to anyone studying European law, comparative legal systems and the philosophy of law, and to North Americans interested in the birth of a federal system and the problems that have arisen from it, and in questions regarding the constitutionality of recently enacted trade agreements.

This review also notes that Revolt or Revolution provides a valuable comparison between the application of public international law and the application of EC law in the EC Member States' legal systems, and that the author's focus on the French and the Irish makes the book a useful resource for persons interested in those systems (though the concentration on two countries only leads to the omission of decisions from other countries that contribute important developments in the application of EC law).

This article assesses the effect of the increasing gap between the protection of investor interests and human rights, and suggests that international human rights and trade agreements should be subject to the same procedures for ratification. It is clear in this age of globalization that human rights are important to the international community and thus an essential component of effective US foreign policy. To continue on the present path will only worsen the gap between the enforcement of economic interests and human rights and subject the United States government to increasing charges of duplicity, both domestically and internationally.

[This article also appears as chapter 21 of Anne Bayefsky, ed., Human Rights and Refugees, Internally Displaced Persons and Migrant Workers: Essays in Memory of Joan Fitzpatrick and Arthur Helton, (Leiden; Boston: M. Nijhoff, c2006).]

The article concludes: that the Special Rapporteur on Trafficking should investigate and make recommendations regarding the role peacekeeping forces have in creating a demand for trafficked victims, and that implementation of the mandate of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325 must also be considered when investigating the causes of and solutions to trafficking; that peacekeeping personnel must be held to strict codes of conduct that protect the physical security and ensure the freedom of movement of women and children during and after conflict; that member states must provide effective mechanisms to guarantee the physical security of women and children during the transitional period following any armed conflict (including specific guarantees of prosecution for violations of sex exploitation and trafficking); that post-conflict reconstruction governments must adopt and implement standards to eliminate the trafficking of women and children; that all U.N. peacekeeping operations should include a gender unit within the military operation for monitoring compliance with established, strict codes of conduct; and that peacekeeping commanders should be required to report to the Special Rapporteur on Trafficking any violations by peacekeepers as part of standard U.N. peacekeeping mission reporting.