How Businesses Can Help Safeguard Human Rights

Michael H. Posner has had a long career in the promotion and protection of workers and citizens around the world. He served as the U.S. assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor in the Obama administration from 2009-2013. Before that, he cofounded and led the advocacy organization Human Rights First. Today, Posner is the Jerome Kohlberg Professor of Ethics and Finance and director of the Center for Business and Human Rights at New York University’s Stern School of Business.

Posner’s new book, Conscience Incorporated: Pursue Profits While Protecting Human Rights (NYU Press), draws lessons from his years of experience working with governments and corporations to improve the conditions of vulnerable people in challenging environments around the world. In an interview with features editor Kaushik Viswanath, Posner discussed why business leaders need to embrace responsibility and become part of the solution in safeguarding human rights. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Kaushik Viswanath: What do you see as the role of business in protecting human rights today?

Michael H. Posner: Businesses are being pushed to do that which governments are failing to do. Many governments are either unwilling or unable to protect their people, and those are often countries where some group of big companies come in and have enormous influence. So these companies have the responsibility to do something and to make sure that they at least aren’t making the human rights problems more acute.

Businesses are increasingly acknowledging that they have constituencies other than just shareholders, such as the communities where they operate, their consumers, and their employees. Are they doing enough? Are these business priorities for most companies? No. But there is at least a real conversation going on.

What kinds of pressures do you see on businesses today to pay more attention to people affected by their operations?

Posner: Governments, especially in Western Europe, have felt pressure from their citizens not to leave it entirely up to business to determine how they are held accountable to those constituencies. Left to their own devices, companies will do things around the edges, like set up sustainability committees or publish a human rights report. But they’re not looking deeply at their business practices or being evaluated by others in a way that gets them to change how they operate.