"Big companies profit from poverty but aren’t obliged to uphold human rights. International law must change – scholar", 3 November 2024

There is some disagreement among legal practitioners and scholars about whether corporations have duties under international law.

Many argue that only states are bound by international law, and it is those states which are obliged to regulate how businesses operate within their borders. Corporations have only a voluntary responsibility to avoid committing human rights violations through their operations...

I argue that international law can no longer exempt corporations from liability for human rights violations, including those arising from poverty. Under certain circumstances, corporations should have duties under international law to ensure human rights are fulfilled...

International human rights law must be developed to impose duties directly on multinational corporations to alleviate poverty in the developing countries where they operate...

Businesses have a long history of profiting from human rights abuses...

[The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights rely] on three factors: states which have the interests of their citizens at heart, corporations complying with human rights standards, and effective remedial systems. If all three work together, then the UN guiding principles can address corporate accountability for rights violations.

In practice, however, this is not the case. Many states, particularly those in the developing world with high levels of poverty, rely on foreign investment. This creates a power imbalance when negotiating with large multinational corporations. Multinationals are able to demand favourable investment conditions, including relaxing laws that might protect human rights.

Under the UN guiding principles, if states do not impose obligations on corporations to comply with human rights, they do not have such obligations.

Not all corporations should have the same duties as states. I propose a set of factors that would determine when a corporation might have a duty under international human rights law to fulfil socio-economic rights...

Ultimately, my proposal seeks to review what we think of as a fair and just economy. Nothing will change if only states have obligations under international law...