scholarly journals Silence as Complicity: Elements of a Corporate Duty to Speak Out Against the Violation of Human Rights

2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian Wettstein
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Corporate Responsibility ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Moral Obligations ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Duty To Protect ◽  
The Way

ABSTRACT:Increasingly, global businesses are confronted with the question of complicity in human rights violations committed by abusive host governments. This contribution specifically looks at silent complicity and the way it challenges conventional interpretations of corporate responsibility. Silent complicity implies that corporations have moral obligations that reach beyond the negative realm of doing no harm. Essentially, it implies that corporations have a moral responsibility to help protect human rights by putting pressure on perpetrating host governments involved in human rights abuses. This is a controversial claim, which this contribution proposes to analyze with a view to understanding and determining the underlying conditions that need to be met in order for moral agents to be said to have such responsibilities in the category of the duty to protect human rights.

3. Human Rights in International Relations

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Dunne ◽  
Marianne Hanson
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
International Responsibility ◽  
Duty To Protect ◽  
Theoretical Issues

This chapter examines the role of human rights in international relations. It first considers the theoretical issues and context that are relevant to the link between human rights and the discipline of international relations, focusing on such concepts as realism, liberalism, and constructivism. It then explores key controversies over human rights as understood in international relations as a field of study: one is the question of state sovereignty; another is the mismatch between the importance attached to human rights at the declaratory level and the prevalence of human rights abuses in reality. The chapter also discusses two dimensions of international responsibility: the duty to protect their citizens that is incumbent on all states in light of their obligations under the various human rights covenants; and the duty of states to act as humanitarian rescuers in instances where a state is collapsing or a regime is committing gross human rights violations.

scholarly journals The State Duty to Protect against Human Rights Violations through Transnational Business Activities

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 13-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Krajewski
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Due Diligence ◽  
Environmental Laws ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
State Practice ◽  
Duty To Protect ◽  
Respective State

Transnational corporations are currently not formally bound by international human rights obligations. Instead, states have a duty to protect individuals against human rights abuses by third parties, including corporations. While it is undisputed that this obligation extends to all individuals living on the territory of the respective state, the extraterritorial scope of the duty to protect remains contested. This is especially the case for human rights violations through transnational business activities. The state on whose territory the violation occurs has a duty to protect human rights by adopting and implementing labour and environmental laws applicable in that state. However, it is less clear if and to what extent the state of the main seat of the mother company or the global ordering company — the ‘home state’ — also has a human rights duty to regulate transnational business activity. This article argues that such a duty can be based on existing human rights doctrine and standards of general international law such as the ‘no harm’ rule and the due diligence principle. It argues that states have a duty to regulate transnational business activities of corporations over which they exercise jurisdiction if human rights violations caused by such activities are predictable and preventable. In its final part, the article assesses various approaches in state practice which could be seen as instruments in the fulfilment of the duty to regulate transnational business activities.

scholarly journals On Corporate Responsibility, Human Rights, and Transitional Justice: Quo Vadis?

2018 ◽  
Vol 112 ◽  
pp. 324-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruti Teitel
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Corporate Responsibility ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
Supreme Court Decision ◽  
Court Decision ◽  
United States Supreme ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Quo Vadis

The 2018 ASIL panel on the question of corporate responsibility and human rights, and in particular, my remarks on corporate responsibility and transitional justice, preceded a long-awaited United States Supreme Court decision on the question of whether foreign corporate responsibility for human rights abuses belonged in United States courts ending in a closely decided vote—dividing sharply along political lines, with the Court conservatives in splintered opinions deciding against such liability. A forceful dissent by the four liberals on the Court would have allowed the Alien Tort Claims Act (ACTA) claim to go forward.

International Criminal Prosecution of Physicians: A Critique of Professors Annas and Grodin's Proposed International Medical Tribunal

2004 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 419-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Mason Meier
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Medical Knowledge ◽  
International Medical ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Criminal Prosecution ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Physician Participation ◽  
Do No Harm

Society benefits from physicians who seek truth and healing for the good of humanity. Despite ethical admonishments to “do no harm,” however, physicians have caused some of the most appalling human rights abuses of the twentieth century. Physicians, alone or in concert with the state, have willfully abused their medical knowledge and debauched their profession in furtherance of human rights violations. Compounding their crimes, physicians often have been complicit in following oppressive regimes in abusive practices against their citizens. Ironically, it is their knowledge of this healing art that allows physicians to take part in this injurious conduct; and it is this knowledge that states seek to harness in buttressing violative policies. In fact, for nations bent on violating human rights, it is “much easier for governments to adopt inherently evil and destructive policies if they are aided by the patina of legitimacy that physician participation provides.”

The Slippery Slope of UN Peacekeeping: Offensive Peacekeeping in Congo and Beyond

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana Kearney
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Slippery Slope ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
Member States ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Self Defence ◽  
The Way

Fed up with the decades-old violence plaguing the DRC, the UN Security Council broke new ground by granting peacekeepers an offensive mandate to pursue rebels rather than waiting to react in self-defence. This transformation in UN military operations alarmed several States, concerned over a perceived loss of sovereignty and a weakening of the principle of non-intervention. To allay these fears, Resolution 2098’s drafters incorporated a provision expressly assuring Member States that offensive peacekeeping tactics in the DRC would not generate precedent for future UN action. However, examining past UN practice and ‘slippery slope’ theory alike reveals that explicit disavowal of precedent cannot guarantee that offensive peacekeeping will not be used as a template for future UN action. In fact, the incorporation of such language may foster the generation of a slippery slope in UN peacekeeping, ultimately paving the way for increased scope of UN intervention in situations of gross human rights violations. The article concludes by proposing a framework for how actors can manipulate slopes to generate or slow precedent for future UN action.

scholarly journals Eritrea and the Migration Dilemma in the Horn of Africa

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Stark
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
The State ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Legal Institutions ◽  
Horn Of Africa ◽  
Stepping Stone ◽  
Shared History ◽  
Shared Culture ◽  
The Way

The state of Eritrea is gradually losing its population. A variety of human rights violations including mandatory indefinite conscription is contributing to many Eritrean citizen’s choice to flee. Those that do flee, tend to go to Sudan or Ethiopia as there is a long historical and cultural connection between the three countries. Additionally, Sudan and Ethiopia have a variety of laws and institutions in place to help the various refugees they take in. However, while there is this legislation, refugees are still vulnerable segments of the population that face many troubles. This shared history, culture and the legal protections afforded to refugees, are some of the reasons why Eritreans choose to flee to Sudan or Ethiopia. Some refugees use Sudan and Ethiopia as a stepping stone on the way to Europe, this shared culture and history provides them of a taste of home while attempting to flee to a better life and the legal institutions offer them protection whether they choose to Sudan and Ethiopia or continue on their journey to Europe.

scholarly journals Obtaining Damages for Corporate Human Rights Violations in Investment Arbitration Through a Procedural Lens

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasmin S
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Investment ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
International Investment Law ◽  
The Past ◽  
Investment Arbitration ◽  
Violent Acts ◽  
Public Scrutiny ◽  
Investment Law

Over the past decades, transnational corporations have come under increasing public scrutiny for their involvement in human rights abuses, particularly in developing countries. One may think of violent acts against local communities, slave labor, and grand scale environmental pollution. International investment law protects and safeguards the rights of foreign investors but falls short of holding them accountable to societies where they operate. Recently, a few arbitral tribunals have grappled with the question of whether corporations can be held accountable for illegalities that constitute human rights violations inflicted upon the host state or its people. This article discusses the arbitral treatment of corporate human rights violations by investment tribunals in three treaty-based cases: Copper Mesa v. Ecuador, Burlington v. Ecuador and Urbaser v. Argentina and draws on recent scholarly work on causation in investor-state arbitration to evaluate their approaches.

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