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In Defence of Direct Obligations for Businesses Under International Human Rights Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 January 2020

Andrés Felipe LÓPEZ LATORRE*
Affiliation:
LL.B, LL.M, J.S.D, Law Professor, Universidad de la Sabana, Campus del Puente del Común, Km. 7, Autopista Norte de Bogotá, Chia, Colombia. Email: andres.lopez4@unisabana.edu.co

Abstract

This article presents three arguments on why businesses have direct obligations under existing international law. Nevertheless, in the present state of international law, the obligations of businesses are limited and wholly dependent on the state’s further action of implementation and enforcement. To reach this conclusion, the article asserts that businesses have partial legal personality in international law; that legal obligations and the enforcement model must be distinguished as two separate issues; and that human rights are requirements of justice that emanate from the dignity of each human person to any social actor, including businesses and other non-state actors. The article attempts to contribute to the debate about a binding instrument on business and human rights and presents an alternative understanding of international law that can assist domestic tribunals in applying international human rights standards to businesses as they carry out activities in their jurisdictions.

Type
Scholarly Articles
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2020

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Footnotes

The author declares that he has no conflicts of interest.

References

1 My deep thanks to the editor of the Journal, Michael Santoro, for his numerous extraordinarily helpful comments and additions. Any errors are unfortunately my own.

2 Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the Issue of Human Rights and Transnational Corporation and Other Business Enterprises, ‘Corporations and Human Rights: A Survey of the Scope and Patterns of Alleged Corporate-Related Human Rights Abuse (By John Ruggie)’, UN. Doc. A/HRC/8/5/Add.2 [hereinafter Ruggie Report Add.2 2008] (23 May 2008).

3 ‘Multinational corporations have long outgrown legal structures that govern them, reaching a level of transnationality and economic power that exceeds domestic law’s ability to impose basic human rights norms.’ Beth, Stephens, ‘The Amorality of Profit: Transnational Corporations and Human Rights’ (2002) 20 Berkeley Journal of International Law 45, 5460Google Scholar.

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7 Steinhardt, note 3, 28.

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29 Higgins, note 25, 50.

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31 Alvarez’s solution to demonstrate that certain international obligations apply to corporations is to draw analogies with specific treaty regimes that already allocate obligations to corporations. See ibid.

32 Higgins, note 25, 50.

33 Reparation of Injuries Suffered in Service of the U.N. [1949] ICJ (Ad. Op.) 174–178.

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35 Ibid, 25.

36 Nørgaard, Carl Aage, The Position of the Individual in International Law (Munksgaard: Copenhagen 1962)Google Scholar.

37 Jägers argues that by applying Nørgaard’s analytical approach, one could reach the conclusion that legal personality is not a conceptual obstacle in order to conceive human rights obligations of corporations. Ibid, 33; Jägers, note 33, 25–26.

38 Daniel Patrick O’Connell, International Law, Vol 2 (Stevens, 1970) 81–83.

39 Clapham, note 4, 77.

40 Ibid, 78.

41 Ibid, 79.

42 Ibid, 80.

43 O’Connell, note 37, 81–82.

44 Dal Ri Júnior and Bastos, note 20, 178.

45 This has been argued by many theorists of the corporate real personality such as Otto von Gierke, Frederick W Maitland, John Neville Figgis and Peter French. See, generally, Mun̆iz-Fraticelli, Victor Manuel, The Structure of Pluralism: On The Authority of Associations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) Ch 9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also List, Christian and Pettit, Philip, Group Agency: The Possibility, Design, and Status of Corporate Agents (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013) 87Google Scholar.

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47 Office of the United States Trade Representative, Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/fact-sheets/2015/march/investor-state-dispute-settlement-isds; ‘The arbitration game’, The Economist (11 October 2014), https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21623756-governments-are-souring-treaties-protect-foreign-investors-arbitration (accessed 28 August 2017).

48 European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, 213 U.N.T.S. 221, 230 (signed on 4 November 1950, entered into force on 3 September 1953), art 34; First Additional Protocol to the European Convention (adopted on 20 March 1952), art 1; see Boumois v France App. No. 55007/00 (2003) ECHR; SCP Huglo, Lepage y Asociados, Consejo v France App. No. 59477/00 (2005) ECHR; Klithropiia Ipirou Evva Hellas A.E. v Greece App. No. 27620/08 (2011) ECHR.

49 WTO|Disputes – Dispute Settlement CBT – ‘Introduction to the WTO Dispute Settlement System’, https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/disp_settlement_cbt_e/c1s1p1_e.htm (6 August 2019).

50 Ratner, note 7, 481; Bernaz, note 8, 89.

51 Convention of the Law of the Sea (signed on 10 December 1982, entered into force on 16 November 1994), art 187.

52 See, generally, Vicuna, Francisco Orrego, ‘Of Contracts and Treaties in the Global Market’ (2004) 8 Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law 341358Google Scholar.

53 North American Free Trade Agreement, 2 ILM 289, 605 (signed in 1992, entered into force on 1 January 1994) chapter 11, art 1110.

54 Ratner, note 7, 481.

55 UN Security Resolution 1306, 83 S/RES/1306 (adopted on 5 July 2000) paras 1–10; see also UN Security Resolution 1718 S/RES/1718 (adopted on 14 October 2006) in which the Security Council has ordered states to freeze assets of private entities.

56 Article 9 of the Charter provided: ‘At the trial of any individual member of any group or organization the Tribunal may declare (in connection with any act of which the individual may be convicted) that the group or organization of which the individual was a member was a criminal organization’. Charter of the International Military Tribunal 59 Stat. 1544, 82 U.N.T.S. 279 (8 August 1945), art 9; see, e.g., United States v Krauch, reprinted in 8 Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10, at 1081 (1953), http://www.mazal.org/archive/nmt/08/NMT08-C001.htm.

57 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union OJ. C 326 (signed on 13 December 2007) 47–390.

58 See Tripartite Declaration of Principles Concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy, MNE Declaration (revised on March 2017), 4th edn.

59 George, note 45, 27.

60 Ibid, 29–30.

61 See, generally, Mun̆iz-Fraticelli, note 44, Ch 9; see also List and Pettit, note 44; Finnis, John, Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011) 148154Google Scholar.

62 Alvarez, note 18, 28.

63 Velásquez Rodríguez v Honduras 1988, Corte IDH (2019).

64 Ibid, 29. It is unclear which specific human right Alvarez has in mind that disruptive protestors could harm, but one could assume that it could be private property as enshrined in Article 21 of the American Convention.

65 Werhane, Patricia H, ‘Corporate Moral Agency and the Responsibility to Respect Human Rights in the UN Guiding Principles: Do Corporations Have Moral Rights?’ (2016) 1 Business and Human Rights Journal 520CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Following Thomas Donaldson, Werhane proposed the idea that although corporations are not moral personas, they can be considered secondary moral agents to which society can ascribe moral responsibilities and have secondary moral rights.

66 Legal personality is a legal concept, while personhood is an ontological reality from which a moral status follows. The notion of legal personality stems from Roman law, specifically from the Latin word persona, which was the ‘mask’ worn during theatre plays. The mask indicated or defined someone’s particular status in relation to others in society, such as the status of a free man or a slave (status libertatis), of citizens or aliens (status familiae), and of members of a family (paterfamilias or filiusfamilias). See, generally, Tur, Richard, ‘The “Person” in Law’ in Peacocke, R, Gillett, Grant and Ramsey Centre, Ian (eds.), Persons and Personality: A Contemporary Inquiry (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 1987) 116, 117Google Scholar. Personhood is an ontological reality of every human being that refers to its substantive nature or ontological identity (factual truth) as a rational agent who has the capacity to think and choose. Finnis, John, ‘Euthanasia and Justice’ in Human Rights and Common Good. Collected Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011) 211CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

67 Some of the major works defending the reality of the corporation are: Frederic William Maitland, Introduction to Otto von Gierke: Political Theories of the Middle Ages (Frederic William Maitland tran., Cambridge, University Press, 1900); List, Christian and Pettit, Philip, Group Agency: The Possibility, Design, and Status of Corporate Agents (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013)Google Scholar; Mun̆iz-Fraticelli, Victor Manuel, The Structure of Pluralism on The Authority of Associations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Laski, Harold J, ‘The Personality of Associations’, 29 Harvard Law Review 404426 (1915)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Machen, Arthur W Jr, ‘Corporate Personality’, 24 Harvard Law Review 253267 (1910)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

68 Ripken, Susanna K, ‘Corporations Are People Too: A Multi-Dimensional Approach to the Corporate Personhood Puzzle’, 15 Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law 97178 (2009) at 112Google Scholar.

69 Ibid.

70 For a definition of collective intentionality, see Searle, John R, Making the Social World (Oxford: OUP, 2010) at 4345CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

71 List, Christian and Pettit, Philip, Group Agency: The Possibility, Design, and Status of Corporate Agents (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013) at 4Google Scholar.

72 See Maitland, Frederic William, Introduction to Otto von Gierke, Political Theories of the Middle Ages (Frederic William Maitland tran., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1900) at 314–15Google Scholar.

73 See Cleveland, Sarah H, ‘Our International Constitution’ (2006) 31 Yale Journal of International Law 1126, 101Google Scholar; Stephan, Paul B, ‘International Governance and American Democracy Symposium: AEI Conference Trends in Global Governance: Do They Threaten American Sovereignty’ (2000) 1 Chicago Journal of International Law 237256Google Scholar.

74 This construction of rights and duties correlation is based on the ‘Hohfeldian Analytical System’ of rights. See Hohfeld, WN, ‘Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning’ (1916) 26 Yale Law Journal 710770CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a general discussion about correlative duties to human rights, see Shue, Henry, Basic Rights: Subsistence, Affluence and US Foreign Policy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996) 35Google Scholar, and Donaldson, Thomas, Ethics of International Business (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1992Google Scholar).

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76 Ratner, note 7, 476–481.

77 Ibid, 481.

78 Clapham, note 4, 31–32.

79 Ibid, 36.

80 See Clapham, Andrew, ‘The “Drittwirkung” of the Convention’ in Macdonald, Ronald St J, Matscher, Franz and Petzold, Herbert (eds.), European System for the Protection of Human Rights (Deventer: Martinus Nijhoff, 1993) 163Google Scholar.

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82 David Bilchitz, The Ruggie Framework, 24.

83 Ibid, 27.

84 Ibid, 30.

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86 See Ratner, note 7, 443–545.

87 Established in 2015 by the UN Human Rights Council. Compilation of commentaries on the ‘zero draft’, UN Human Rights Council, 4th Session of the Open-ended Inter-Governmental Working Group on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights, October 2018.

88 The UNGPs were endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council in June 2011. Human Rights Council, Res. 17/4 adopted by the Human Rights Council: Human Rights and Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises, 17th sess., Agenda Item 3, U.N. Doc. A/HRC/RES/17/4, 2011.

89 Guiding principles on business and human rights, UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (OHCRH), endorsed in its resolution 17/4 of 16 June 2011.

90 Elements of the draft legally binding instrument on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights, OHCRH chairmanship of the OEIGWG established by Human Rights Council, Res. a/hrc/res/26/9 (29 September 2017).

91 Vázquez, note 5, 941.

92 Ibid, 942.

93 Discussing what he classifies as ‘the legal impossibility argument’ that private non-state actors simply cannot incur responsibilities under international law because international law only binds states. Ibid; see Clapham, note 4, 35–41.

94 Vázquez argues that a direct obligation is one that is enforced by an international mechanism. Although he accepts that some intentional norms could later be enforced by subsequent new international tribunals as occurred with the ad hoc tribunals such as the ICTFY and Rwanda Tribunal, he argues that it would still be very ‘tricky’ to identify direct applicable norms to private entities. The reasons that he gives to support this claim are that the language directed at states in all treaties evidence an unexpressed understanding of the parties that only apply to states, and that it has to be shown that norms themselves directly applied to a corporation at the time of the conduct because of prohibition against retroactive legislation. Vázquez, note 5, 941.

95 See Mugerwa, note 23, 249.

96 Ratner, note 7, 475.

97 Vázquez, note 5, 951.

98 Steinhardt, note 3, 40; Ratner, note 7, 481.

99 This holds because there are no legal obligations without legal force. Finnis, note 60, 311.

100 Steinhardt, note 3, 40.

101 Austin, John, The Province of Jurisprudence Determined (Charleston, SC: Bibliolife Network, 2013) 201Google Scholar.

102 Hart, HLA, The Concept of Law, 3rd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) 8285, 216–219CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

103 Finnis develops the argument that a person must obey the law for the sake of the common good, and that the reasonableness of the law is precisely the ultimate source of its legal force combined with its positive stipulation. See Finnis, note 60, 305, 313–318.

104 Immanuel Kant, ‘To Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch’ [1795], in Perpetual Peace and Other Essays 107 (Ted Humphrey tran., 1983).

105 O’Connell, Mary Ellen, The Power and Purpose of International Law: Insights from the Theory and Practice of Enforcement (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2008) 68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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107 Finnis, note 60, 331–336.

108 Ibid.

109 O’Connell, Mary Ellen, The Power and Purpose of International Law: Insights from the Theory and Practice of Enforcement (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2008) 7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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111 Vázquez, note 5, 953–954.

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114 For a critique on the project of international human rights from cultural diversity perspective, see Mutua, Makau, Human Rights: A Political and Cultural Critique (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013)Google Scholar.

115 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (adopted on 21 December 1965, entered into force 4 January 1969), art 2(1)(d).

116 European Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism, 137 UNTS 93, ETS No. 90 (adopted on 27 January 1977, entered into force on 4 August 1978), art 10: ‘Each Party shall adopt such measures as may be necessary, in accordance with its legal principles, to establish the liability of legal entities for participation in the offences set forth in Articles 5 to 7 and 9 of this Convention’.

117 Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography G.A. res. 54/263, Annex II, 54 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 49) at 6, U.N. Doc. A/54/49 (adopted on 25 May 2000, entered into force on 18 January 2002), art 3(4): ‘Subject to the provisions of its national law, each State Party shall take measures, where appropriate, to establish the liability of legal persons for offences established in paragraph 1 of the present article. Subject to the legal principles of the State Party, such liability of legal persons may be criminal, civil or administrative’.

118 See, generally, PG Carozza, Subsidiarity as a Structural Principle of International Human Rights Law, 2003.

119 Ibid.

120 Jägers, note 33, 37; see, generally, Anthea Roberts, Comparative International Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2018). Ch 10.

121 See, generally, Fedtke, Jörg and Oliver, Dawn, Human Rights and The Private Sphere: A Comparative Study, Vol 3 (London: Routledge, 2011)Google Scholar.

122 ‘Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world’. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UN A/RES/3/217A (adopted on 10 December 1948), preamble.

123 Finnis, note 60, 206–207.

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133 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, ‘General Comment No. 12: Right to Adequate Food’ 20th sess U.N. Doc. E/C.12/1999/5 (12 May 1999); see also Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, ‘General Comment No. 15: The Right to Water (Arts 11 and 12 of the Covenant)’, U.N. Doc. E/C.12/2002/11 (20 January 2003); see Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, ‘General Recommendation No. 25, Article 4, paragraph 1 of the Convention (temporary special measures)’ U.N. Doc HRI/GEN/1/Rev.8; see Report prepared for the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Human Rights and Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises, ‘State Responsibilities to Regulate and Adjudicate Corporate Activities under the United Nations’ Core Human Rights Treaties Individual Report on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Report No. 3’ (June 2007).

134 Caso I.V. v Bolivia. Serie C No. 329 (2016) Corte IDH 158, 189.

135 Caso Lagos del Campo v Perú. Serie C No. 340 (2017) Corte IDH 142.

136 Caso Pueblos Kaliña y Lokono v Surinam. Serie C No. 309 (2015) Corte IDH 223.

137 See, generally, López, Andrés Felipe and Ibrzábal, Milagros, ‘La Sexta Etapa (2013-Actualidad): La Corte de La Igualdad’ in Santiago, Alfonso and Bollocchio, Lucía (eds.), Historia de La Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (1978–2018) (La Ley, 2018)Google Scholar. See also Londoño-Lázaro, María Carmelina, Thoene, Ulf and Pereira-Villa, Catherine, ‘The Inter-American Court of Human Rights and Multinational Enterprises: Towards Business and Human Rights in the Americas?’, (2017) 16 The Law & Practice of International Courts and Tribunals 437463CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

138 Jägers, note 33, 45–46.

139 Ibid, 33, 46. See also Černič, Jernej LetnarHuman Rights Law and Business: Corporate Responsibility for Fundamental Human Rights (Europa Law Publishing, 2010) 17Google Scholar.

140 Steinhardt’s framework is based on the decision in Kadic v Karadzic of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals of the United States; Steinhardt, note 3, 33.