ABSTRACT
If you were to stop and ask someone to name a human rights abuse, whether they realised it or not, chances are it would include corporate involvement in one form or another. Indeed, many major household names have been linked to some of the worst human rights violations. These violations include but are not limited to political assassination and murder,1 destruction of land and devastation to the capacity to live,2 violence against workers3 and violence against consumers,4 to name a few. We will discuss these violations and some related cases in more detail throughout the book; however, it is worth noting, before we get there that a common thread linking them all is that international law has thus far been incapable of adequately addressing the corporate violations of human rights. Human rights were once considered the responsibility of states alone;
however, with changes in the global political economy that led to a widespread adoption of neo-liberal politics and policies, it is now difficult to avoid the failure to include private corporations in the promotion and protection of human rights (Evans, 2011, pp. 90-1). Corporate involvement in the creation and implementation of the policy and practice of human rights is riddled with contradiction; the priorities of corporations – to maximise profits at all costs – are very often detrimental to those of human rights – to ensure human dignity regardless of the cost. Yet, despite the aggrandisement of the political role of corporations in the planning of human rights, discussed in Chapters 1 and 2, matters of corporate responsibility and accountability remain relatively opaque in international law. Some legal scholars have attributed the incapacity of international law to
address corporate abuses to a ‘conceptual helplessness’ that has left the system of international law riddled with ambivalence, and incapable of dealing with entities other than states (Klabbers, 2003). Thus, as we discuss in detail in Chapter 4, the international legal system continues to uphold a ‘statist’ or ‘state-centric’ approach to human rights, defending the principle that only states can be directly responsible for human rights violations. Whilst this traditionalist approach to international law might seem to preclude
corporate responsibility, upon further scrutiny of the case law and of legal doctrine in Chapter 5, we see that international human rights courts have applied indirect responsibility of corporations for violations of human rights in some cases. These cases point to the possibility of a unique contribution by human rights judges in addressing corporate violations via their privileged position as interpreters of the law. But more than that, these cases highlight the possibility that the limits of international law regarding corporate responsibility are in fact more likely to be found outside of the law itself. As we argue throughout this book, although the law does present certain challenges, the limits imposed on corporate accountability are both political and legal. Debates around the binary of the direct/indirect responsibility of corpora-
tions have been at the heart of discussions at the United Nations (UN) on this matter. In what follows below, we will outline these debates and scrutinise the historical development of corporate accountability at the international level. In so doing, we raise questions about legitimacy and the rule of law emanating from global institutions that have defined the status of corporations in the world today, and are responsible for constructing and upholding a legal architecture that facilitates the evasion of corporate responsibility.
