Business and Human Rights: an analysis of attempts to neutralize allegations of human rights violations

Abstract

This article analyzes companies’ attempts to neutralize allegations of human rights (HR) violations. The literature review focuses on the meanings HR gained in businesses. The empirical material comprises secondary sources such as newspapers, NGO reports, blogs, and other publications resulting from initiatives aimed at environmental causes and HR. Based on the empirical material, we analyzed the denunciations of HR violations by nine multinationals and we used thematic analysis based on the theoretical contribution and the selected sources. The results showed that companies, as global players, adopt corporate complicity attitudes abstaining from responsibilities and a recurring attempt to deny complaints by disqualifying and discrediting them, denying the past, literally and implicitly, and creating war cabinets.