Center for Business and Human Rights

This week a commission of prominent experts sounded an alarm about the precarious state of the news media in the U.S. and the resultant danger to our democracy. They rightly emphasized that trust in the news media is at an all-time low and that a changing business environment has left local newspapers in dire straits. In response, they are proposing a series of practical recommendations aimed at strengthening traditional media companies and urging new digital platforms to accept significantly greater responsibility for their business conduct.

There are few human rights issues in the U.S. on which public attitudes have changed more quickly and greater progress has been achieved than those relating to sexual orientation and gender identity. Though initial progress was slow, over the last 20 years, advances have been swift and dramatic.

More than 35 million people around the world are subject to modern-day slavery, a quarter of them children. Victims include women who are trafficked for prostitution or forced marriage and people coerced into bonded or forced labor.  In recent years, there has been a growing international effort to persuade governments to address modern slavery more aggressively, including by holding companies legally accountable for abuses in their global supply chains. This initiative has been led by organizations like Focus on Labor Exploitation (FLEX),  Anti-Slavery International, and  KnowTheChain, and it has been supported by such organizations as the Freedom Fund and Humanity United.

Two news stories this week captured conflicting forces at play in the struggle to preserve journalism. On the positive side, Facebook announced that it will invest more than $300 million over the next three years to help support local news organizations globally. But while Facebook was promising to help smaller news organizations “grow and thrive,” the same sort of local outlets came under existential threat from another direction.

Excerpt from Bloomberg Businessweek -- "Founded 148 years ago in New York by two Union Army vets to promote marksmanship, the group describes itself as the “oldest civil rights organization in America.” Its public events and messaging are often draped in the Stars and Stripes. Yet for all the patriotic symbolism, many of the forces shaping the NRA these days are distinctly non-American."

Few companies in any industry have built a reputation for leadership that McKinsey & Company has in the world of management consulting. Each year, the best and brightest students from the most prestigious colleges and business schools compete for the privilege of joining the firm. They do so knowing that they will receive superior training, work on cutting-edge issues with top global corporations and governments, and be able to add the McKinsey name to their resumes.

On December 10, the United Nations will mark the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In an era of spreading nationalism and gross violations in places like Yemen, Myanmar, South Sudan and Venezuela, it is fair to ask whether the Universal Declaration and the global human rights movement have improved the human condition.  And given these contemporary challenges, there’s the further question of where we go from here.

On Monday, the Central European University was forced out of Hungary, the latest victim of Prime Minster Victor Orban’s increasingly authoritarian rule. Founded in 1991 by Hungarian-born financier and philanthropist George Soros, the CEU has become one of the leading universities in Central Europe, with world-class programs in politics and international studies. In recent years, Orban has targeted the CEU and Soros as part of his broader efforts to undermine democratic institutions in Hungary.

Excerpt from The New York Times -- "Paul Barrett, deputy director for the Center for Business and Human Rights at the NYU Stern School of Business, said threats by retailers to move elsewhere might not be credible. 'I don’t think the big Western brands want to leave. They’ve committed themselves to improving safety,' he said. 'Various brands are exploring Ethiopia but there isn’t the capacity to rival what goes on in Bangladesh.'"

On Wednesday, The New York Times published an in-depth account of Facebook’s poor corporate responses to political disinformation, hate speech and other harmful content on its platform. The Times described the company’s approach as “delay, deny and deflect.” A day later, Facebook issued a sharp rebuttal, insisting that it is making progress on these challenges, such as recent improvement in its efforts to take down hate speech.