ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how and why business needs to be engaged in protecting human rights, and considers the particular challenges to human rights stemming from supply-chain production. A culture of cooperation and proactive engagement are both key elements of the engagement model adopted by the Fair Labor Association (FLA) and the glue that binds the disparate stakeholders together in a common goal of reducing human rights violations by the corporate sector. The FLA is only one of a series of corporate social responsibility initiatives that emerged in the 1990s, but it is unique in that it is the only system that provides for unannounced factory audits with transparent results. The FLA is one example of how business can be principally engaged in human rights protection. The Business as Usual model contrasts the path of Principled Engagement by opting to downplay or simply ignore the relevant human rights issues.
