ABSTRACT
Business creates wealth and well-being. By providing jobs, companies ensure that millions of people on all continents remain out of poverty and secure better lives for themselves, fulfilling their right to food, their right to health and their children’s right to education. Simply put, the positive impact of business on human rights cannot and should not be ignored. Business and human rights, however, is primarily about the negative impact of business on the enjoyment of human rights. This is not because business is evil; rather, it is because human rights, as a field of study, tends to focus on violations. The typical human rights abuser is the state and it is on this premise that international human rights law has developed after the Second World War. Business and human rights challenges this by looking primarily into human rights violations by non-state actors: private companies.1
