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Amnesty international and greenpeace netherlands
Greenpeace activists blockade the Probo Koala at the Estonian port of Paldiski. Activists branded the cargo vessel an EU Toxic Crime Scene and called for an investigation of the ship by the Estonian authorities, September 2006. © Greenpeace/Christian Åslund
Box: Business and human rights Under international law, states have a duty to protect human rights from abuse by non-state actors, such as companies. The scope of the state duty to protect has been elaborated in the work of the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Business and Human Rights (UNSRSG). The UNSRSG has also developed standards for corporations that have been endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council. The state duty to protect In the context of corporate activity, the state duty to protect requires states to have in place adequate and effective systems for regulating business activity. While action to prevent corporate operations from harming human rights should be the priority, the UNSRSG has underlined that: “State regulation proscribing certain corporate conduct will have little impact without accompanying mechanisms to investigate, punish, and redress abuses.” This means that regulation must be backed by enforcement mechanisms and appropriate penalties, which should be applicable to the corporation as a legal entity and to directors and officers of companies where this is appropriate. The scope of the state duty to protect human rights in the context of business activity must include an extraterritorial dimension. Corporate entities operate across state borders with ease; however, state borders simultaneously often
present institutional, political, practical and legal barriers to corporate accountability and redress for the victims of corporate human rights abuses. There are numerous ways in which multinational corporate groups can negatively affect human rights in different jurisdictions. For example, the decisions made by one branch of a multinational corporate group based in one country can lead directly to human rights abuses in another country; the actions of a subsidiary may be substantially influenced by its parent company, or the parent may derive financial benefit from a subsidiary whose operations are responsible for human rights abuses; a company in one country may contract with a company in another country whose operations on its behalf result in abuses. An additional dimension of the problem is the fact that corporate groups headquartered in developed countries but operating in developing countries – directly or through subsidiaries or partnership – have been shown to operate to standards that would be unacceptable in their home state. There are several reasons for this: in some developing countries the regulatory framework is weak and there are not sufficient resouces to enforce laws and regulations; in some cases the company, as a relatively powerful economic actor, has undue influence in the country, whether over the executive or legislative arms of government, or – often – the agencies and civil servants in charge of regulation.