Company-created remedy mechanisms for serious human rights abuses: a promising new frontier for the right to remedy?

Securing redress for individuals and communities adversely impacted by the activities of multinational corporations in the Global South is notoriously difficult. Remedy gaps abound: host states often lack the capacity or will to hold companies to account, and judicial recourse in a corporation’s home state or a third state is sometimes impossible, always legally and logistically difficult, and infrequently successful.1 In addition, many nonjudicial grievance mechanisms – such as Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) national contact points, industry-wide complaints processes, and

*Corresponding author. Email: sarah.knuckey@law.columbia.edu

The International Journal of Human Rights, 2015 Vol. 19, No. 6, 801-827, https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2015.1048645

Sarah Knuckey and Eleanor Jenkin

CORPORATE POWER AND HUMAN RIGHTS

international financial institution ombudsmen – often lack adequate investigation, determination, or enforcement powers, or are inaccessible or simply unknown to rights-holders.2