Human Rights and Transparency Politics in Global Production Networks
Scheper Christian, 2019
Name of publisher/editor
Article 30
Co-author
Sabrina Zajak
Geographic area
Global
Summary & key words
Christian Scheper and Sabrina Zajak explore the topic of transparency politics in a new era of business and human rights. They point out that while corporate transparency is understandably seen as important, as disclosure and reporting allows the field to assess compliance and improvements and “presents an opportunity” for public supervision, “transparency as such is neither an automatic mech-Chapter synopses: Mapping the field 17anism for preventing human rights violations, nor is it necessarily linked to new opportunities for viola-tions.” Rather, the chapter argues, it is “the politics of transparency, which connects it to human rights improvements or violations.” At every level (collection, translation, selection, confirmation and usage) infor-mation and disclosure is “power-laden and contested” and heavily reliant on business rationales. Recognizing the politics of transparency is a first step. The question then becomes how to navigate transparency politics when interrogating alleged truths and trying to foster institutional environments that enable “public regula-tors and rights-holders… to gather, check and commu-nicate about human rights conditions and impacts of corporate activities.”