Ethical questions concerning global sustainability governance have been widely discussed with respect to the role of civil society in general. Interestingly, faith-based actors (FBAs) have so far attracted scant attention in this context. Yet FBAs actively participate in international political negotiations and public debates on sustainable development. Secularisation theory differentiates between religious and secular actors. To date, however, it remains unclear whether FBAs contribute a distinct faith-based perspective to global sustainable development discourse and, if so, what this perspective is. The (...) present article aims to identify the relevant norms and ideas in FBAs' communications and to contrast them with other existing ideas on sustainable development. On the basis of a content analysis of the submissions by FBAs and non-faith based civil society groups in the context of the UN Rio+20 summit, the article first investigates what visions are contained in current articulations of FBAs with respect to sustainable development. Secondly, it explores in what way FBAs' ideas about sustainable development differ from those of secular civil society. Our analysis establishes a basis for further inquiries into the role of FBAs in global sustainable development discourse. (shrink)

Business actors create and operate in global production networks that bring them in contact with regulatory frameworks across multiple levels and domains. Importantly, they also participate in shaping those regulatory frameworks. But what are the specific interests they pursue in their involvement in regulation? Traditionally, scholars tended to assume that the focus of business actors is primarily on avoiding (stringent) public regulation. Recent developments have highlighted a broader range of business interests, however. Accordingly, this paper investigates business positions on the (...) ascription of duties and rights in regulation, specifically in the fields of due diligence, supply chain liability, and extraterritorial jurisdiction. The paper explores these issues in the context of business regulation in the field of Human Rights, looking at the United Nations Guiding Principles on human rights, their German implementation in the ‘Nationaler Aktionsplan Wirtschaft und Menschenrechte’ and the associated processes, in particular. (shrink)

Democratic legitimacy is rarely associated with private governance. After all, private actors are not legitimized through elections by a demos. Instead of abandoning democratic principles when entering the private sphere of governance, however, this article argues in favour of employing alternative criteria of democracy in assessments. Specifically, this article uses the criteria of participation, transparency and accountability to evaluate the democratic legitimacy of private food retail governance institutions. It pursues this evaluation of the democratic legitimacy of these institutions against the (...) background of their ambivalent impact on the sustainability of the global agrifood system. The paper refers to a range of cases of private retail standards with different governance structures and substantial foci to illustrate its argument. (shrink)