The upcoming lecture by PD Dr. Janne Mende is about “Businesses as Standard-Takers and Standard-Makers in Human Rights: The Pluralization of Governance Authority”. The lecture will take place on 21 May at 6 pm in the castle of the TU Darmstadt (S 312), room 11.
Businesses have become important actors in global governance. They are not only pivotal addressees of standards (standard-takers), but also assume different roles of standard-making. This has far-reaching effects on their legitimacy, their power and thus their authority as global governors. Classic approaches that neatly distinguish between public and private actors in global governance do not sufficiently capture these developments, because businesses (and other governance actors) assume public and private roles, as well as a third kind of roles that transcend notions of public and private. To understand these roles in how they shape authority and what this means for standard-setting in global governance, this talk suggests to extend the public–private relationship with a third – the ‘societal’ category, in order to develop novel perspectives on the multiple forms of governance authority.