Business and human rights as Swedish foreign policy: the soft implementation of international regulatory norms

Higham, Ian ORCID: 0000-0003-1427-6940 (2024) Business and human rights as Swedish foreign policy: the soft implementation of international regulatory norms. Scandinavian Political Studies. ISSN 0080-6757

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Abstract

This article aims to explain why national governments choose soft policies in the domestication of international norms even when those norms may explicitly call for harder measures. The article achieves this aim by exploring domestic adoption of National Action Plans (NAPs) for implementing the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). The UNGPs are an international soft law instrument that calls for a mix of voluntary and mandatory policies to promote human rights due diligence, and NAPs are soft domestic policy instruments that lack the bindingness of mandatory due diligence legislation now found in several states. Most governments with NAPs have adopted them specifically as foreign policies, treating them not as regulatory initiatives but as tools for enhancing national reputations. Using a range of primary and secondary sources, the article constructs a case study of Sweden to explain why governments might opt for softer implementation of the UNGPs in the form of NAPs. It draws several conclusions: (1) governments may emulate the approach to domesticating international regulatory norms that is promoted by international organisations; (2) support from domestic actors motivates norm implementation, and the policy style selected is likely to reflect power constellations in the state and, under consensus-based governance systems, the lowest common denominator of actor preferences; and (3) path dependency following institutional venue selection influences the type of policy developed and adopted. These findings shed new light on the reasons why international policy norms are implemented in ‘softer’ ways than perhaps intended by their architects.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/14679477
Additional Information:	© 2024 The Author
Divisions:	Grantham Research Institute
Subjects:	J Political Science > JF Political institutions (General) K Law > K Law (General) J Political Science > JC Political theory J Political Science > JN Political institutions (Europe)
Date Deposited:	10 Jul 2024 15:33
Last Modified:	13 Nov 2024 02:18
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/124194

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