Letters, Corrections & Clarifications:
Response by John Ruggie to Ethical Corporation Magazine

I read with great interest the recent Special Report in Ethical Corporation, entitled “Ruggie report: Ignore Human Rights at your Peril,” commenting on my report to the UN Human Rights Council as UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights. I write to clarify a number of issues.

As you noted, the corporate responsibility to respect is one of the three principles in the policy framework I put forward. It is important that all actors understand the nature of this responsibility to ensure that we can progress with a common language. Thus it is necessary to point out that my report in fact finds that the concept of “sphere of influence” is unhelpful for further elucidating the boundaries of the responsibility to respect. Instead, I refer to the concept of “scope of due diligence” as a useful tool.

This means that it is inaccurate to suggest that my report says that “a company’s sphere of influence extends to any “leverage” a company may have over actors that are causing harm.” Instead, I state that it is not reasonable to attribute responsibility to companies solely on the basis of “influence” understood as “leverage”. I note that sphere of influence combines together two very different meanings of influence: one is influence as “impact,” where the company may be the cause of harm; the other is influence as whatever “leverage” a company may be able to exert over other actors with which it may or may not have a business relation. Impact falls squarely within a company’s responsibility to respect human rights; leverage may or may not, depending on circumstances.

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