Paper short abstract:

The political discussion on the regulation of multinational enterprises to prevent the harmful impact of their activities in the Global South has faded into technicalities. Analyzing its consequences is a form of resistance to the instrumentalization of human rights standards by MNEs?

Paper long abstract:

Can adverse human rights impacts in extractive industries in host countries like Peru can be effectively addressed by mandatory human rights due diligence legislation (mHRDD) enacted by home countries like Germany?

Through legal ethnography my research aims to provide insights into what is transpiring within the corporate world in the process of complying with human rights standards such as the German Supply Chain Due Diligence Law (LkSG), as well as the responses of affected communities to these practices.

Based on the result of previous comparative research on mHRDD, I will delve deeper into how human rights are integrated into corporate practices and made functional to corporate objectives. What are the internal mechanisms that enable the instrumentalization of human rights standards by MNEs? How are these processes of instrumentalization contested by rights-holders in attempts to mobilize emancipatory aspirations of human rights? How do the technicalities of the LkSG contribute to expertise construction, shape global governance in value chains, and create knowledge relations (Latour 2004; Riles 2005; Valverde 2009)?

The puzzle holds a deeply personal dimension: How do I respond to questions about standards with emancipatory aspirations when I have directly witnessed the oppression these standards seek to mitigate? How is my identity as a Latin American migrant woman reinforced or re-defined in the task of analyzing human rights norms from the Global North with universal aspirations? Is my research project itself a form of resistance to (or activism against) the instrumentalization of human rights standards by MNEs?