ETD

• business and human rights
• human rights defender
• logistic regression

Human rights defenders (HRDs) play a fundamental role in the protection and fostering of human rights worldwide. Nevertheless, HRDs are frequently reported to fall victim to harsh repression, inclusive of life-threatening violations of human rights. This thesis intends to identify the factors that increase the likelihood of HRDs being deprived of their lives on account of their activism opposing corporate interests. To address this argument, it was conducted a statistical analysis employing two datasets derived from an original dataset constructed by the Business and Human Rights Resource Center (BHRRC) which consists in the estimation of logistic regression models. The results indicate that the factors influencing the mentioned likelihood or probability are the victim’s gender, the industry or operation sector of the company, and the level of economic inequality in the country where the conflict occurs.