Sustainability at the intersection of business and human rights

Human rights issues play an increasingly important role in the overall sustainability discussion. Questions on safe working conditions, forced labor, or the rights of indigenous communities have become essential topics in the social dimension of sustainability. Likewise, sustainability’s environmental dimension is of growing relevance in human rights terms. Global warming leads to climate migration and threatens the well-being of vulnerable stakeholders. On a local level, resource depletion and pollution endanger the human right to food, water, and a healthy environment.

Businesses can make an impact in this intersection of sustainability and human rights in manifold ways. They can leave a positive footprint by creating safe jobs, offering products and services that address human needs, regenerating ecosystems, and contributing to local development. Too often, however, they undermine social sustainability by violating human rights either in theirdirect operations or through the indirect effects linked to their value chains. Against this background, numerous frameworks such as the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) have emerged to guide companies on respecting human rights. Moreover, a growing number of states have enacted legislation, including Britain’s “Modern Slavery Act” and Germany’s new Law on Supply Chain Responsibility
(“Lieferkettengesetz”), to move beyond the level of soft law. These changing external expectations are also mirrored in the way companies manage business human rights internally. In particular, they have to establish sound due diligence and risk management systems and
increase their ability to measure and report their human rights performance. Hosted in the City of Human Rights, Nürnberg, the NaMa 2022 fall conference invites submissions that target the intersection of sustainability and business and human rights. We welcome conceptual, empirical, and review papers that explore the general relevance of human rights for sustainability management or focus on specific topics such as climate-related human rights claims or supplier monitoring.

Potential topics and research questions include but are not limited to:

• What are the conceptual commonalities and differences of the sustainability and BHR
  framing?
• What are novel business practices and instruments to manage the human rights
  dimension of sustainability?
• How does a human rights perspective change the normative discourse and stakeholder
  relations in sustainability?
• What is the impact of legal institutionalization on sustainability management and its interplay with other corporate functions (e.g., legal)?
• How are sustainability and human rights influenced by digitization? How do new
  technologies such as blockchain offer novel opportunities but also challenges for sustainability and human rights due diligence?
• What kind of governance systems are needed to manage human rights issues across global value chains? How do these governance approaches relate to other sustainability management institutions?
• How do companies organize and institutionalize the management of human rights?
• What are other hot or future topics at the intersection of sustainability and BHR?
• Open topic conference track:We also invite submissions for the open topic conference track. The open topic track welcomes manuscripts from the entire field of sustainability management.

Submissions:
We accept submissions in English as well as in German. Submissions are possible as either full papers or extended abstracts:

1. Full paper: max. 30 pages (including title page, references, figures, tables, etc.; formatted with Times New Roman font, 11 pt, single spaced)

2. Extended abstract: max. 7 pages (including title page, references, figures, tables, etc.; formatted with Times New Roman font, 11 pt, single spaced)

All submissions will go into a double-blind review process. Please hand in your submission by email to: conference-nama2022@fau.de. Please make sure that your document does not contain any information that reveals the author(s). In your submission e-mail, please indicate the type of submission (full paper, extended abstract) as well as your contact information.

Time line:

• Submissions are possible until April 30, 2022
• Communication of review results by May 31, 2022
• Conference registration until July 15, 2022

Organizers:

Prof. Dr. Markus Beckmann (markus.beckmann@fau.de)
Prof. Dr. Matthias Fifka (matthias.fifka@fau.de)

Contact:

Email: conference-nama2022@fau.de