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Time to engage

30 January 2015 / Chris Syder
Issue: 7638 / Categories: Features , Human rights , Commercial
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Businesses working across jurisdictions will increasingly have to deal with “human rights” issues, says Chris Syder

Human rights mean different things to different people. Consequently, human rights have different implications and contexts, not least because they belong to every person whatever their nationality, place of residence, gender, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, language or any other status.

Universal human rights are often set out and guaranteed by law in the form of treaties, customary international law, general principles and other sources of international law. However, international or national human rights laws regretfully do not prevent human rights abuses. The limitations of government mean the role of socially responsible businesses then comes into sharp focus. But when a business examines the detail to engage effectively in human rights, it faces an increasingly complex and uncertain context.

How should business view human rights?

Human rights represent both risk and opportunity to business. Sometimes they are harnessed by pressure groups, such as global trade unions, to further their wider agendas which, not surprisingly, can make businesses

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DWF—19 appointments

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Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

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Double hire marks launch of family team in Leeds

NEWS
The Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in July that overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, once poster boys of the Libor and Euribor scandal. In NLJ this week, Neil Swift of Peters & Peters considers what the ruling means for financial law enforcement
Bea Rossetto of the National Pro Bono Centre makes the case for ‘General Practice Pro Bono’—using core legal skills to deliver life-changing support, without the need for niche expertise—in this week's NLJ
Charlie Mercer and Astrid Gillam of Stewarts crunch the numbers on civil fraud claims in the English courts, in this week's NLJ. New data shows civil fraud claims rising steadily since 2014, with the King’s Bench Division overtaking the Commercial Court as the forum of choice for lower-value disputes
Small law firms want to embrace technology but feel lost in a maze of jargon, costs and compliance fears, writes Aisling O’Connell of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in this week's NLJ
Artificial intelligence may be revolutionising the law, but its misuse could wreck cases and careers, warns Clare Arthurs of Penningtons Manches Cooper in this week's NLJ
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