Business and Human Rights: Presence on MERCOSUR’s programmatic agenda?

Abstract

Human rights are the effective protection framework for the development of the person; its recognition by the State implies its guarantee for the enjoyment and exercise. However, an analysis that does not integrate business activity would be incomplete.
With the advent of globalization, technological advances, new emerging powers and the blurring of borders, the maintenance of international order presented new challenges that were answered at different levels of integration.
With special emphasis, since the 1990s and at the beginning of the millennium, we find a common concern regarding the consequences of business activity on Human Rights. Concern that resulted in a growing thematic agenda in different international organizations.
The role of companies, as typical actors in the domestic economy, began to be questioned in the context of globalization, and their cross-border action introduced new challenges to the political and legal framework operating at the national level. The United Nations made an institutional echo of this situation as of 2005. However, in MERCOSUR it took another decade.
In this context, this article seeks to answer the question: what place does the Business and Human Rights issue have on the MERCOSUR agenda? The answer to this question will be given through the diachronic analysis of the programmatic milestones of MERCOSUR in the field of Human Rights.