Human Rights Quarterly

ABSTRACT:

Following the endorsement of the United Nations Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) in 2011, attention has shifted towards challenges of implementation. Through detailed analysis of the case of Indonesia, this article analyses the conditions under which implementation occurs and explores strategies for strengthened implementation. While UNGP implementation has often been argued to depend on strong collaborative learning networks, we demonstrate instead that power balances between rights coalitions and politico-business and technocratic elites have proved decisive—implementation varying across sectors and over time depending on configurations of market power, histories of rights struggles, and patterns of high-level political support.