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In 2018, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) adopted a new standard, requiring companies to report on their initiatives for the promotion of workers’ health. These initiatives range from the provision of smoking cessation programmes to free health screenings in the workplace, going beyond ‘traditional’ occupational health and safety (OHS) requirements. The new standard is the first transnational instrument to specify express requirements for employers in workplace health promotion. It provides an interesting example of transnational new governance, whereby private actors adopt voluntary norms to regulate business in areas traditionally pertaining to public regulators (here, public health). This article analyses the extent to which private actors have acted as norm entrepreneurs in workplace health promotion, and whether the new standard could mark the emergence of ‘corporate health responsibility’ in the workplace. The article starts by analysing existing intergovernmental instruments in workplace health promotion. After highlighting a regulatory gap in traditional governance, the article examines the contribution of private regulators in workplace health promotion. To this end, it analyses the new standard, as well as the recent reporting practice of transnational corporations (TNCs) in workplace health promotion. Although the new standard is a welcome private, regulatory initiative, it also illustrates the orchestration deficit often found in transnational new governance. The article concludes that the road to ‘corporate health responsibility’ is likely to be a long one. Corporate Social Responsibility, Global Health, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), Transnational New Governance, Occupational Health And Safety, Standards, Workers’ Health, Workplace Health Promotion

In 2017, the municipality of Copenhagen made exercise mandatory for social workers performing physical tasks, such as lifting patients, cooking and cleaning. Private Danish companies have also started to impose exercise on their employees, including sedentary employees. Rationale behind mandatory exercise in the workplace is that it makes employees healthier and more productive, which is a win-win for employees and employers. However, mandatory exercise can put employees in a vulnerable position as employers potentially interfere with some of the fundamental rights of employees, namely their bodily autonomy and privacy. In addition, the increased emphasis on exercise at work and being ‘physically fit’ can indirectly lead to unlawful discrimination practices in recruitment, during employment, and at termination, as employers may exclude or sanction people who are not be able, or do not want, to exercise on various grounds, ranging from age, disability, pregnancy, religion, to health conditions. Therefore, this article examines the lawfulness of mandatory exercise at work in light of the fundamental rights of employees in two selected jurisdictions (Denmark and France), as well as under relevant European Union (EU) law, and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and related case law. Using a comparative and European perspective, the article examines the legality of mandatory exercise at work in the selected jurisdictions. It analyses and compares the level of protection of employees’ rights to privacy, autonomy and non-discrimination in France and Denmark. It also assesses whether mandatory exercise could qualify as an occupational health and safety measure in the selected jurisdictions. The article examines these questions in light of the increasing recognition and integration of fundamental rights in labour law at European, EU, and national levels. The article finds that the French and Danish labour laws offer different levels of protection of employees’ rights to autonomy, privacy and the right to non-discrimination. As a result, mandatory exercise would likely be deemed to be legal in Denmark, and illegal in France. However, the legality of mandatory exercise under Danish law could be challenged in light of the strong protection of employees’ fundamental rights at EU and European levels. The article concludes that rather than an obligation, exercise should be framed as a right for employees.

This chapter constitutes initial thinking in a project funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark (grant number 1127-00125B) which will run over 2022-2024 with initial case studies in Greenland and the Cook Islands. It draws on earlier research which examined how Indigenous Peoples living on islands that were subject to colonization are not the focus of international climate change law and suggested that the special procedures of the UN system might offer some, if limited, remedy. See: Miriam Cullen, '"Eaten by the Sea": Human Rights Claims for the Impacts of Climate Change on Remote, Subnational Communities' (2018) 9(2) Journal of Human Rights and the Environment 171.