The research group led by Professor Nicolas Bueno focuses on the law of economic globalization and sustainability and, in particular, on three main research topics.

The topic Multinational Enterprises, Human Rights and Sustainability Law presents and analyzes international and European legislation on corporate due diligence with regard to human rights and the environment. The Center specializes in all aspects of labor rights in global production chains.

International Labour Law and Just Ecological Transition studies how to reconcile workers' rights and environmental protection in a globalized economy in international law.

The interdisciplinary and experimental research topic Legal Theory and Post-Growth Research focuses on the role of law and institutions in promoting human well-being within the limits of planetary resources. Beyond a productivist logic, this project presents and draws on contemporary post-growth research to analyze and understand the law.

Members

Prof. Dr Nicolas BuenoAssistant Professor

MLaw Yasmin Bellazrak-DinariResearch Assistant

Nicolo AlessiPost-doctoral Researcher

Projects

1. Multinational Enterprises, Human Rights and Sustainability Law

The project Multinational Enterprises and Sustainability Law explains and analyses international, European and Swiss developments regarding responsible business conduct. Based on the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, several States, including Switzerland, have adopted due diligence laws expecting large companies to conduct human rights, labour rights, and environmental due diligence in the global value chains.

Publications

Nicolas Bueno, La responsabilité des entreprises dans les zones de conflits armés : diligence accrue et responsabilité légale, Revue de droit suisse (2025, forthcoming).

Nicolas Bueno, Nadia Bernaz, Gabrielle Holly and Olga Martin-Ortega, ‘The EU Directive on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence (CSDDD): The Final Political Compromise’, in Business and Human Rights Journal (2024), doi: 10.1017/bhj.2024.10 (open access)

Nicolas Bueno, Isidore Ngueleu Djeuba, Civil liability in the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive: A 'Brussels Effect' on International Investment Law? in Ziegler, Canapa, Cardozo (eds) Business and Human Rights: Emerging Challenges, Issues, and Trends (Nijhoff 2024)

Claire Bright and Nicolas Bueno, ‘Mandatory Human Rights Due Diligence’ in Anthony Ewing (ed), Teaching Business and Human Rights (Edward Elgar 2023) 144-159. doi: 10.4337/9781802201130.00022

Nicolas Bueno, Anil Yilmaz Vastardis, Isidore Ngueuleu Djeuga, ‘Investor Human Rights and Environmental Obligations: The Need to Redesign Corporate Social Responsibility Clauses’, Journal of World Investment & Trade (2023) 1–38 doi: 10.1163/22119000-12340278 (open access)

Nicolas Bueno et Christine Kaufmann, Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, in Binder and Nowak (eds.) Elgar Encyclopedia of Human Rights (Elgar 2022) 375-383

Nicolas Bueno and Christine Kaufmann, ‘The Swiss Due Diligence Legislation: Between Law and Politics’ 6(3) Business and Human Rights Journal (2021) 542-549. doi: 10.1017/bhj.2021.42 (Open Access)

Nicolas Bueno and Claire Bright, ‘Implementing Human Rights Due Diligence through Corporate Civil Liability’, 69(4) International & Comparative Law Quarterly (2020) 789-818, doi: 10.1017/S0020589320000305

Nicolas Bueno, Diligence en matière de droits de l’homme et responsabilité de l’entreprise : le point en droit suisse, 29 (3) Swiss Review of International and European Law (2019) 345-366.

Nicolas Bueno, Corporate Liability for Violations of the Human Right to Just Conditions of Work in Extraterritorial Operations, 21(5) The International Journal of Human Rights (2017) 565-588, doi: 10.1080/13642987.2017.1298092

Nicolas Bueno, The Swiss Popular Initiative on Responsible Business: From Responsibility to Liability, in Liesbeth Enneking (ed.), Accountability, International Business Operations and the Law: Providing Justice for Corporate Human Rights Violations in Global Value Chains (Routledge 2019) 239-259, doi: 10.4324/9781351127165-12.

Nicolas Bueno, Multinational Enterprises and Labour Rights: Concepts and Implementation, in Janice Bellace et al. (eds), Research Handbook on Labour, Business and Human Rights Law (Edward Elgar 2019) 421-438, doi:10.4337/9781786433114.

National and international cooperations

The NOVA Centre for Business, Human Rights and the Environment, Lissabon, Portugal, led by Professor Claire Bright

EU Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence on Corporate Sustainability and Human Rights Law, Wageningen, Netherlands, led by Professor Nadia Bernaz

Center for Human Rights Studies, University of Zurich, Switzerland, led by Professor Christine Kaufmann

2. International Labour Law and Ecological Transition

International Labour Law and Ecological Transition is a project that aims to understand how to better reconcile workers rights/interests and the ecology in international labour law. The ILO Resolution 2023 concerning a just ecological transition encourages social dialogue in the adoption of environmental measures that can impact workers and the promotion and creation of green jobs. Beyond this, the project develops the legal basis of a society relying less on productive work for individual wellbeing and welfare.

This research started with the publication of From the Right to Work to Freedom From Work (Best-paper award by the International Association of Labour Law Journals). It received funding from an SNSF Ambizione resulted in Labour Law Utopias : Post-Growth and Post-Productive Work Approaches (Oxford University Press 2024).

Publications

Nicolas Bueno, Beryl ter Haar, Nuna Zekic (eds), Labour Law Utopias: Post-Growth and Post-Productive Work Approaches(Oxford University Press 2024) ISBN 9780198889755 (open access)

Nicolas Bueno, Beryl ter Haar and Nuna Zekic, ‘Labour Law Beyond Growth and Productivism: An Introduction’, in Nicolas Bueno, Beryl ter Haar, Nuna Zekic (eds), Labour Law Utopias: Post-Growth and Post-Productive Approaches (Oxford University Press 2024) 1-16, doi: 10.1093/oso/9780198889755.003.0001 (open access)

Nicolas Bueno, The Value of Work in Labour Law, Nicolas Bueno, Beryl ter Haar, Nuna Zekic (eds), Labour Law Utopias: Post-Growth and Post-Productive Approaches (Oxford University Press 2024) 116-131, doi: 10.1093/oso/9780198889755.003.0007

Nicolas Bueno, ‘Valor del trabajo y derecho laboral más allá del mercado’ in Christian Ebert et al. (eds) La dimensión laboral del constitucionalismo transformador en América Latina (Universidad de los Andes 2024) 573-595.

Nicolas Bueno, From Productive Work to Capability-Enhancing Work: Implications for Labour Law and Policy, 23(3) Journal of Human Development and Capabilities (2022) 354-372 doi: 10.1080/19452829.2021.1951186 (open access)

Nicolas Bueno, ‘Freedom at, through and from Work: Rethinking Labour Rights’, 160 (2) International Labour Review (2021) 311-329, doi: 10.1111/ilr.12192

Nicolas Bueno, Liberté au travail, par le travail et face au travail: comment repenser les droits du travail, 160 (2) Revue internationale du Travail (2021) 339-360, doi : 10.1111/ilrf.12195

Nicolas Bueno, Libertad en el trabajo, a través del trabajo y frente al trabajo. Un replanteamiento de los derechos laborales 140(2) Revista internacional del trabajo (2021) 335-355. doi: 10.1111/ilrs.12198

Nicolas Bueno, From the Right to Work to Freedom from Work: Introduction to the Human Economy 33(4) International Journal of Comparative Labour Law and Industrial Relations 463-487(2017) doi: 10.54648/ijcl2017020

National and international cooperations

Centre de droit public et social, Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgique, Professeure Elise Demine

3. Legal Theory and Post-Growth Research

Post-growth research is an emergent interdisciplinary field of study revolving around the limits to economic growth and its shortcomings in ensuring social and environmental justice. Research on doughnut and wellbeing economics, steady-state economics, and degrowth can all be considered part of post-growth studies. While interdisciplinary, this field of study seems to lack an important standpoint, which is a legal perspective.

Besides Marxist constitutional theory and existing critics of the law in capitalism, a full-fledged legal perspective on post-growth has not yet been developed. A post-growth approach to law can contribute to the understanding of the role of law in reinforcing or contrasting a growth approach to wellbeing and to which extent economic growth has, in turn, conditioned legal developments in different areas of law (constitutional law, corporate law, labour law, etc.) and institutions at various levels (international, supranational, domestic). It can also help design concrete solutions beyond the suggestion of social et ecological policies, by also taking into account the legal and institutional contexts in which they are proposed.

Publications

Nicolas Bueno and Nicolò P. Alessi, ‘Legal Theory and Post-Growth Research’ (in preparation)

Nicolas Bueno, Beryl ter Haar, Nuna Zekic (eds), Labour Law Utopias: Post-Growth and Post-Productive Work Approaches(Oxford University Press 2024) ISBN 9780198889755 (open access)

Nicolò P. Alessi and Roberto Louvin, A New Lease of Life for the Aosta Valley’s Consorterie| Un nouveau souffle pour les consorteries de la Vallée d’Aoste, 109(1) Journal of Alpine Research | Revue de géographie alpine (2021), doi: 10.4000/rga.8249 (open access)

National and international cooperations

Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona, Instituto de Ciencia y Tecnología Ambientales (ICTA-UAB), Ecological Economics, Professor Giorgos Kallis.

Research projects of the group

The Future of Work in a Post-Liberal Era

Faculty of Law

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Business and Human Rights

Faculty of Law

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Centre for Law and Sustainable Economic Globalization

Research projects of the group

The Future of Work in a Post-Liberal Era

Business and Human Rights