Can Voluntary Business and Human Rights Norms be Effective? Exploring a Multidimensional Perspective of Norm Effectiveness in Africa

Abstract Although the concept of human rights was rarely visible in corporate documents prior to the 2000s, many corporations today publicly espouse strong commitments to respect human rights due to normative mechanisms such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) introduced in 2008. Contributing to ongoing scholarly discussions around the known gap between human rights rhetoric and performance, this article draws upon the global norm diffusion literature to conceptualize the effectiveness of business and human rights (BHR) norms as output, outcome, and impact. This multi-dimensional understanding of effectiveness reveals why a norm—embraced by a variety of stakeholders such as corporations, governments, and civil society groups—could still face contestation and implementation challenges at the grassroots, implying a lack of impact effectiveness. The article contextualizes this discussion within specific cases in Africa, using primary fieldwork data collected in Ghana and South Africa alongside other secondary data. Our overall objective is to contribute to both theoretical and practical discussions of how BHR norms spread and become useful to purported beneficiaries or ‘end-users’ of such norms. In doing so, the article showcases a deeper understanding and contextualization of human rights in the ‘real world’ of places where extractive corporations operate.