Human rights violations and transnational business. Towards a treaty on business and human rights (liability of whom, of what kind and before which courts?)

Abstract

The capacity of companies to generate wealth, employment and development wherever they carry out their activities is indisputable, but their great capacity to violate the human rights of the people who work for them and of the communities in which they are based is just as indisputable. Hence the urgent need to discipline their behavior in order to eradicate impunity, particularly in those countries that have lax human rights legislation. The purpose of this work is to study some aspects of the Draft Treaty on business and human rights that is being developed within the Human Rights Council. This paper defends an international treaty that is particularly applicable to transnational companies as well as local companies with transnational activity, a treaty that recognizes that the obligations of States in terms of human rights towards the business sector are not limited to their territory but their responsibility goes further; a treaty that recognizes the direct responsibility of the companies themselves for the violation of all human rights, and not only for the commission of serious violations of these, since otherwise it would give the impression of tolerance in other cases. A liability that must have a criminal nature only in the case of natural persons, and of a civil or administrative nature, as appropriate, in the case of legal persons. In short, a treaty that recognizes the competence of a flexible range of jurisdictions, trying to avoid the application of the rule of forum non conveniens.