The project deals with human rights abuses and disruption in mining areas. Focusing on the capacities of local authorities and local communities is essential for cope effectively and sustainably with mining’s impacts. We study three areas of policy – corporate social responsibility (CSR), decentralisation, and development cooperation (ODA) – and examine their impacts on local capacities. The project raises two hypotheses: the capacities of local authorities and communities, on the one hand, and the alignment of CSR, ODA and decentralisation, on the other hand, are essential for development and human rights in mining areas. The outcome of the project will be a conceptual account, a methodology and a computerised graphic tool that displays detailed information on local capacities. The tool is a presentational (in a simple form), mapping (comprehensively) and learning tool that will facilitate alignments and synergies among stakeholders.
Project period: 2016 –
Project owner:
Radu Mares
Radu has a background in human rights law, specializing in the business and human rights area, with a focus on regulatory and compliance issues raised by multinational enterprises in developing countries. His main research interest is the protection of human rights through economic relations. Some questions that have engaged Radu for a long time are:
- How does the international human rights system accommodate and interact with the fragmented, overlapping and dynamic landscape of responsible business conduct?
- How does the shift from corporate voluntarism to hard law happen and how do companies affect the emergence, institutionalization, and diffusion of norms of social responsibility?
- Can complex regulatory regimes that reject the ‘command-and-control’ approach deliver on their promise to achieve corporate compliance and respect for human rights?
Radu’s research draws on economic law, corporate governance, risk management, regulatory pluralism and global governance. He has also conducted field work in mining areas in Ghana and Peru. His current focus is on the EU green transition, and the impacts of this legislative framework on human rights and environmental protection globally through EU value chains.
Radu is an Associate Professor at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights, the director of the Research and Education Department, and the thematic leader for the Business and Human Rights area at RWI. He is a Doctor of Law (PhD) and a Docent in the Faculty of Law at Lund University. Radu contributes to RWI capacity-strengthening programs for academics, businesses and/or governmental actors in China, Cambodia, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Estonia and Belarus, and Asia region. Since 2007 he has taught and supervised at Lund University’s Faculty of Law and more recently at the Economics Faculty. Radu values opportunities to collaborate with colleagues from other disciplines, to explore new linkages between economics and human rights, in education, research, and outreach.
For further updates on his research, please refer to his Research profile:
https://portal.research.lu.se/en/persons/radu-mares