Introduction: Human Rights and Global Corporations

The question of whether human rights principles and practices can soften the deleterious effects of capitalism is a long-standing one. Anthropologist Jane Collier (2001) recounts how sociologist Émile Durkheim, growing up in the aftermath of the failed social revolutions of 1848, was concerned with the effects of capitalism on people, which led him to search for a moral discourse that would help mediate the harmful effects of capitalist market relations, where profits were privileged over people. The papers in this section examine whether attempts to regulate global corporations by drawing on human rights laws, norms, and practices succeed in easing the harmful effects of capitalism. Gay W. Seidman is concerned with the nefarious effects on labor standards and workers rights; Chris London is most interested in the effects on—and our ability to further—human flourishing.