The evolution of transnational sustainability governance through a systems theory lens: From rejection to acceptance of business responsibilities for human rights

This article applies Luhmann's systems theory approach to the argumentative dynamics of the processes and outcomes of key UN and EU initiatives during the decade 2002-2011 in regards to the development and acceptance of human rights responsibilities for business enterprises. That decade saw a change from rejection to welcoming of ideas on such responsibilities as a key corporate sustainability issue. Applying systems theory to these empirical cases, the article demonstrates that the systems theory perspective is capable of providing important insights on communicative aspects of a regulatory process towards a normative change in contexts with multiple and diverse interests at play. Such processes can play important roles when the transnational character of sustainability problems exceeds the nation state, and the territorial limits of national public law and the weak private-actor coverage of international law pose challenges to conventional regulation. Based on this challenge, and building on the empirical analysis, the article contributes to the emergent scholarship on how transnational sustainability issues may be governed.