An International Mechanism of Accountability for Adjudicating Corporate Violations of Human Rights? Problems and Perspectives

Abstract

The inception within the Open-ended intergovernmental working group on business enterprises and human rights (OEIGWG) of the negotiations on a binding instrument to regulate in international human rights law the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises and the release in the 2018 of the Zero Draft of the legally binding instrument and of its complementary Optional Protocol, has re-ignited the long-standing debate concerning the creation of international monitoring mechanisms for adjudicating corporate violations of human rights. While monitoring mechanism currently configured under the Zero Drafts does not depart from those traditionally existing under similar bodies in the international system of monitoring and supervision of human rights treaties, other options usually advocated by scholars, other experts, and the civil society, also include at the creation of an international tribunal with the specific mandate to deal with human rights violations committed worldwide within corporate activities or, alternatively, and at the regional level, the enlargement of the jurisdiction of already existing courts and tribunals dealing with human rights. The present paper aspires to provide with some reflections on strengths and weaknesses of the monitoring mechanism envisaged under the Zero Drafts, as well as on the desirability and the feasibility of alternative, and de lege ferenda, perspectives for adjudicating corporate violations of human right by the establishment of an international judicial mechanisms on business and human rights.