Some of the most decisive battles over the responsibilities of transnational corporations (TNCs) have been fought in domestic courtrooms – often far from where the alleged abuses occurred. The United States has hosted a substantial proportion of such cases against TNCs, supported by a legal framework that historically provided several plaintiff-friendly avenues. However, the landscape has become more challenging following the Supreme Court’s decisions in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. and Daimler AG v. Bauman. In Canada, the absence of an ATS-equivalent and the application of the doctrine of forum non conveniens have limited opportunities for litigation. However, recent decisions suggest more cases may flow to Canada in the future. In the United Kingdom, developments in the law relating to parent company liability have been particularly significant. In Across continental Europe, barriers such as limited access to class actions, prosecutorial discretion, and weak disclosure obligations continue to constrain transnational human rights litigation.

This chapter explores the obligations of states to hold companies accountable for their human rights impacts. It focuses squarely on the obligation of home states to increase the accountability of companies operating abroad, since the critical open questions and issues in BHR arise predominantly with regard to companies’ extraterritorial conduct. Discussions around such “home-state solutions” have become a signature feature of the BHR discussion. The chapter first takes a general conceptual look at the state duty to protect and at the state's extraterritorial obligations. It then assesses different instruments that states can use to meet such obligations in the policy, legislative, and adjudicative spaces. The discussion on legislative approaches provides an overview and assessment of different types of BHR laws with extraterritorial effects that various states have adopted in recent years. The subsection on adjudicative approaches provides a brief introduction to BHR litigation and an overview of recent seminal cases in various jurisdictions. The chapter concludes with a discussion of criticisms of such extraterritorial state measures.