Corporate Social Irresponsibility, an Elastic Wall, and a Fragile State: Sign of Hope’s Unfinished Quest to Mitigate Human Rights Violations in South Sudan
Date
2023-10-06
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Business and Human Rights Journal
Abstract
This piece recounts the efforts by NGO Sign of Hope (SoH) to rectify human rights violations in South Sudan, which manifested themselves as drinking water pollution by the oil industry. Committed to exposing and remediating this water contamination, SoH was able to prompt the automobile company Daimler’s CSR to engage in extended dialogue with the oil industry stakeholders in Unity State. Despite a tactful use of various methods ranging from cooperation to confrontation, SoH’s campaign did not lead the oil producers to reverse the harm inflicted on the people of Unity State. When SoH tried to hold these companies accountable, SoH had the impression that it was hitting an elastic wall. This piece identifies lessons which may help to counter corporate human rights violations and compensate for the weakness of CSR in fragile states and in the face of corporate irresponsibility.
Description
This article was originally published in Business and Human Rights Journal. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/bhj.2023.39. © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press
Keywords
business, corporate social irresponsibility, CSR, human rights, lessons learned, oil industry, South Sudan
Citation
Kinderman, Daniel, Klaus Stieglitz, and Laure Almairac. “Corporate Social Irresponsibility, an Elastic Wall, and a Fragile State: Sign of Hope’s Unfinished Quest to Mitigate Human Rights Violations in South Sudan.” Business and Human Rights Journal, 2023, 1–7. doi:10.1017/bhj.2023.39.