Abstract
This paper emphasizes the importance of giving space in Brazilian academia to the debates around the responsibilities of business human towards rights. The work emphasizes the complexities around the discussion and points to the necessary caution towards the engagement of corporations as political actors occupying spaces that before belonged only to the states. Moreover, I discuss the relation with the accountability of companies regarding the respect or, in some cases, the protection of human rights. Questioning the human rights appeal to universalism, it is argued that the governance of human rights and the form they take in contemporary society is marked by the power relations between the Global North and the Global South. Finally, it is pointed out that organization moral accountability from hard or soft law regulations is important and a step forward in comparison to the gray field in which many companies operate. Such a move appears to be a contemporary trend that tends to strengthen itself.
Keywords
Business and human rights; Global governance; Global North-Global South