scholarly journals Human Rights Due Diligence Policies Applied to Extraterritorial Cooperation to Prevent “Irregular” Migration: European Union and United Kingdom Support to Libya

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 459-486
Author(s):  
Carla Ferstman
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Due Diligence ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Irregular Migrants ◽  
Human Rights Due Diligence ◽  
Take All

AbstractExtraterritorial cooperation—including by providing funds, equipment, training, and technical support—has become central to policies aimed at preventing access of refugees and “irregular” migrants to particular countries and regions. But cooperating countries and international organizations have due diligence obligations under human rights law to take all reasonable steps to ensure that the cooperation they provide does not result in human rights violations, even when the violations are perpetrated extraterritorially by third parties. Consequently, they can become liable for the failure to exercise due diligence to prevent human rights violations from occurring in the receiving states. Also, they may incur responsibility for the resulting acts where they knowingly aided or assisted the receiving state to commit human rights violations with the support provided.International organizations and some states have begun to adopt human rights due diligence policies to assess and mitigate the risks of such cooperation. Using the examples of European Union and United Kingdom support to Libya, this Article analyzes the due diligence policies they have applied to extraterritorial cooperation in the area of border control and the detention of refugees and other migrants. It finds that the policies as implemented have provided only superficial scrutiny and argues that they should be made more robust and transparent. Ultimately, this will help mitigate the human rights risks associated with extraterritorial assistance, and ideally help ensure that assistance contributes to the strengthening of human rights protections in recipient countries.

Fixing, Adjusting, Regulating, Protecting Human Rights - The Shifting Uses of Regularisations in the European Union

2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 297-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert Kraler
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Irregular Migrants ◽  
National Human ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Human Rights Based Approach ◽  
The Eu

AbstractAlmost all Member States in the European Union currently make use, or in the past have made use of some form of regularisation of irregular immigrants, although to greatly varying degrees, in different ways and as a rule only reluctantly. A distinct feature of recent regularisations has been the shift towards a humanitarian justification of regularisation measures. In this context, regularisation has become reframed as an issue of the protection of irregular migrants’ human rights. As a result, regularisation has to some extent also been turned from a political tool in managing migration into an issue of international, European and national human rights law. While a human rights framework indeed offers a powerful rationale and at times compelling reasons why states ought to afford a legal status to irregular migrants, I argue that a human rights based approach must always be complemented by pragmatic considerations, as a human rights based justification of regularisation alone will be insufficient to find adequate responses to the changing presence of irregular migrants in the EU, not all of which can invoke human rights based claims to residence.

Establishing a Corporate Responsibility Ombudsman: Enhancing remedy through state-based non-judicial mechanisms?

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-122
Author(s):  
Juho Saloranta
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Corporate Responsibility ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Sufficient Evidence ◽  
Export Credit ◽  
Due Diligence ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Credit Financing ◽  
Human Rights Due Diligence

This article assesses the efficiency of non-judicial grievance mechanisms in providing victims of corporate human rights violations with improved access to remedy. As no such mechanism is currently available, this article formulates a proposal for a new mechanism in the form of a corporate responsibility ombudsman, which would offer a great deal of flexibility as well as being an inexpensive, expeditious and informal manner of dealing with such issues. The article argues in favour of utilizing states’ regulatory arsenal to improve victims’ access to remedy extraterritorially. Based on recent international developments, I elaborate approaches to human rights due diligence regulation and export credit financing by means of two corporate responsibility ombudsman proposals. In relation to these proposals, I divide the effectiveness criteria of Principle 31 of the United Nations Guiding Principles into three main categories: empowerment, investigation and enforcement. Since obtaining sufficient evidence is of paramount to those seeking remedies for violations of corporate responsibility, states should bestow quasi-judicial powers on corporate responsibility ombudsmen to achieve efficiency, which could also create legitimacy. This article provides decision-makers and scholars with insights into how access to remedy could be synchronized with the momentum of human rights due diligence legislation in the European Union and beyond.

scholarly journals In Search of Due Diligence Obligations in UN Peacekeeping Operations

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 203-225
Author(s):  
Nigel D. White
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Due Diligence ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Peacekeeping Operations ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
International Human ◽  
Failure To Protect

Abstract It is argued in this article that due diligence, grounded on positive duties under international human rights law, is a standard against which to measure the performance of UN peacekeeping forces. Its adoption by the UN will improve accountability, but in a controlled and principled way. A requirement that the UN act diligently to prevent human rights violations would not impose over-onerous obligations. For responsibility to be incurred an organisation must have clearly failed to take measures that were within its power to take. It is argued that the UN not only should be bound by norms of due diligence but is in fact bound by positive obligations derived from customary international human rights law. The development of some due diligence-type measures by the UN to prevent sexual abuse by peacekeepers and to protect civilians within areas of peacekeeper deployment, and the adoption of an explicit due diligence policy to delineate its relationship with non-UN security actors, are positive signs. However, the article demonstrates that the UN needs to further internalise and develop its due diligence obligations if it is to limit human rights violations committed under its watch. Furthermore, it needs to create accountability mechanisms to ensure that it develops the rather limited measures taken thus far, including provision for victims to be able to hold the organisation to account for failure to protect them from human rights violations. Only by accepting its responsibility and liability to such victims will be the UN be driven to improve its due diligence when mandating, preparing, training, deploying and directing peacekeeping operations.

Due Diligence, the UN, and Peacekeeping

2020 ◽  
pp. 217-233
Author(s):  
Nigel D. White
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Due Diligence ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Peacekeeping Operations ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
Meaning And Purpose ◽  
Human Rights Due Diligence

This chapter focuses on the application, acceptance, and implementation of human rights due diligence obligations in UN peacekeeping operations. It points to growing, but uneven, evidence of the development of standards and measures by the UN that would fit the meaning and purpose of due diligence, although there are very few instances of due diligence being used as a term within the UN. The chapter argues that due diligence obligations are applicable either through customary human rights law, or the internal law of the UN, or both due to the fact that the UN’s principles of peacekeeping are themselves based on general principles of international law. The chapter stresses that the UN should have due diligence obligations especially as there is a gap between the commissioning of peacekeeping operations by the UN and the day-to-day control of peacekeepers by the UN.

scholarly journals Outlining the Case for a Common Law Duty of Care of Business to Exercise Human Rights Due Diligence

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Doug CASSEL
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Common Law ◽  
The Other ◽  
Duty Of Care ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Due Diligence ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
A Company ◽  
Human Rights Due Diligence

AbstractThis article outlines the case for a business duty of care to exercise human rights due diligence, judicially enforceable in common law countries by tort suits for negligence brought by persons whose potential injuries were reasonably foreseeable. A parent company’s duty of care would extend to the human rights impacts of all entities in the enterprise, including subsidiaries. A company would not be liable for breach of the duty of care if it proves that it reasonably exercised due diligence as set forth in the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. On the other hand, a company’s failure to exercise due diligence would create a rebuttable presumption of causation and hence liability. A company could then avoid liability only by carrying its burden to prove that the risk of the human rights violations was not reasonably foreseeable, or that the damages would have resulted even if the company had exercised due diligence.

scholarly journals Mandatory Human Rights Due Diligence in Germany and Norway: Stepping, or Striding, in the Same Direction?

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Markus KRAJEWSKI ◽  
Kristel TONSTAD ◽  
Franziska WOHLTMANN
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Supply Chain ◽  
German Law ◽  
International Standards ◽  
Due Diligence ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Decent Work ◽  
Dutch Child ◽  
Human Rights Due Diligence

Germany and Norway are the two latest states to adopt laws mandating human rights due diligence by companies. Germany adopted a Law on Supply Chain Due Diligence (German Law) on 10 June 2021. 1 The same day, the Norwegian parliament passed a Transparency Act (Norwegian Act) requiring human rights and decent work due diligence. 2 Like the French Loi de Vigilance and the Dutch Child Labour Due Diligence Law, these laws provide further momentum for mandatory measures to promote corporate respect for human rights, including future regulations in the European Union (EU). While the aims are similar, the German and Norwegian laws contain certain important differences when it comes to the substance and scope of the due diligence requirement. In this context, adherence to international standards remains the way forward to ensure compliance with divergent requirements in different jurisdictions.

Part IV Normative Evolution, Ch.24 Positive and Negative Obligations

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shelton Dinah ◽  
Gould Ariel
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Standard Of Care ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Due Diligence ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Legal Standards ◽  
State Compliance ◽  
International Human

This article examines the development of positive and negative obligations in international human rights law. It analyses the textual bases and jurisprudence regarding these obligations and considers the issue of due diligence standard of care. It discusses how due diligence emerged alongside and as the standard for judging state compliance with positive obligations to ensure or secure guaranteed human rights and predicts that positive obligations, negative obligations and due diligence may further develop into effective and detailed legal standards that protect individuals from human rights violations, whether committed by state or non-state actors.

scholarly journals The Climate Change Dimension of Business and Human Rights: The Gradual Consolidation of a Concept of ‘Climate Due Diligence’

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Chiara MACCHI
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Business Process ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Due Diligence ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Human Rights Due Diligence

Abstract This article makes the case for a ‘holistic’ approach to human rights due diligence, arguing that such a standard must be interpreted in the light of mutually reinforcing principles of environmental law, climate law and human rights law. Through a review of emerging climate change-related litigation, it shows how a concept of ‘climate due diligence’ is gradually consolidating. Building on the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the article explores climate due diligence both as a standard of conduct and as a business process, presenting its main features. It argues that corporations should integrate climate due diligence into their processes and policies to be best prepared for likely regulatory and judicial developments, such as the upcoming European Union’s regulation on human rights and environmental due diligence.

Binding the United Nations to Customary (Human Rights) Law

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 379-417
Author(s):  
Noëlle Quénivet
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Legal Basis ◽  
Legal Scholarship ◽  
Legal Personality ◽  
The United Nations

Whilst most legal scholarship focuses on the responsibility of the United Nations for human rights violations few studies have ascertained the legal basis of the primary rules leading to such responsibility. This article fills this gap by reviewing the theories used to bind the UN to customary human rights law: (1) the UN has inherited its member states’ obligations, (2) participation in the formation of customary human rights law implies being bound by it, (3) the UN is bound by international law because it has legal personality and (4) as the UN is embedded in international law it must comply with its norms. Such theories are further tested against the backdrop of international organizations’ theories. The article draws the conclusion that (1) should be rejected, (2) is not yet legally sound and (3)-(4), despite their flaws, are more persuasive. Ultimately, recourse must be had to general international law.

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