Cross-cultural perspectives on business and human rights: Insights from African perspective

The business and human rights (BHR) discourse is often criticised from two angles. First, for being Western-centric and primarily State-centric by origin. Second, for building upon colonial and unequal traditional institutional models that never truly address the problems people and the planet face vis-à-vis business activities. This chapter argues that the BHR field would benefit from a cross-cultural analysis by juxtaposing the State-centric and individualist account of international law against the communitarian Ubuntu account of human rights. Our contribution paves the way for such conversation by focusing on an African perspective on human rights. We use two elements of the Afro-communitarian Ubuntu lenses: identity and solidarity. The identity dimension prescribes a moral duty to cooperative interaction that emanates from a sense of identification with a community. Conversely, the solidarity dimension prescribes that people’s capacity for well-being and circumstances that impact such capacity are worthy of being protected and addressed through an intentional act of caring/solidarity. Through the identity and solidarity relational duties, we demonstrate how the Ubuntu account of human rights helps us move beyond the State-centrism and liberal account of the rational individual as the only repository of rights that animates the field of BHR.