A step in the right direction: corporate responsibility under the 2019 revised draft. Part I: beyond transnational conduct and corporations by means of non-reductionist approaches
At the outset, I would like to mention that there are at least two aspects that, in my opinion, strengthen the newest version of the proposed treaty: its applicability to all businesses and corporate operations, transnational or not, explored in Part I; and the clear recognition that businesses do have the capacity to violate human rights, thus getting rid of the euphemisms that some authors have employed when studying non-state actors...
...[T]he latest version [of the draft] seeks to strengthen the protection of human rights from all corporate abuses, regardless of whether they are generated by means of transnational conduct or can be attributable to transnational businesses...
...[T]he content of the draft can be seen as an improvement in strategic and political terms over the previous draft ‘zero’ by means of its aligning with a position that coincides with the one held by European Union States –thus potentially generating greater favorability towards the instrument...
the drafters seriously intend to protect victims from all corporate violations, considering that around the world many violations are attributable to small businesses and to corporations operating locally, it would have been a mistake to miss the opportunity of requiring States to do something in order to prevent and respond to non-transnational corporate violations...