Towards a Definition of a Sustainable Corporation Under the International Frameworks on Business and Human Rights

Abstract This article argues that the global Business and Human Rights movement demonstrates a push towards a human-rights type of sustainable corporation, reconciling economic development and human rights. It explains the necessity for and significance of a definition of a sustainable corporation at the intersection of traditional international human rights and sustainable development instruments. It argues, inter alia, that an internationally recognised definition of a sustainable corporation can settle fundamental questions and create a minimal framework for meaningful discourse on corporate accountability for human rights, climate change and the environment. It identifies difficulties of defining a sustainable corporation such as the integration problem. It suggests ‘direct human rights obligation’ as a minimally sufficient normative criterion for the definitional correctness of a sustainable corporation. The suggested definition of sustainable corporation requires taking a normative position which makes the term ‘essentially contested’ resulting in discursive and behavioural norm contestation in the search for definitional determinacy and consensus within the divide between international and domestic law.