Corporate responsibility for fundamental human rights norms

Corporations are today major influences on our lives. From the 100 largest economies in the world, 51 are corporations while only 49 are states. While it is could be said that economic development coupled with the rule of law and democracy could be the one best for the entire spectrum of human rights, corporations, especially some transnational corporations, often avoid any from of legal responsibility when they commit human rights violations. Then there is inequality in international legal system. International Law on Foreign Investment guarantees protection to corporations from loosing their investments when investing in developing countries with at times fragile economic and legal systems of the. This is coupled with wide several bilateral or multilateral investment treaties which require States to equally treat foreign investors. In turn, corporations are not asked in any international legal instrument to comply at minimum with fundamental human rights norms. This inequality derives from period of decolonization when former colonial powers sought to protect their property when they left their colonial territories. Even though there is no binding mechanism at international level at this period of time regarding corporate human rights obligations, soft law documents provide some enforcement mechanisms such as OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, which are addendum to OECD Declaration on International Investment and Multinational Enterprises. Guidelines are recommendations providing voluntary principles and standards for responsible business conduct for multinational enterprises operating in or from countries adhered to the Declaration. 2000 Version of OECD Guidelines specifies that each OECD State Party has to set up the National Contact Point. NCP is a government department of each State Party responsible for promotion of the Guidelines on a national level. NCP handles all enquiries and matters related to the Guidelines on adhered country.



Recently Global Witness has lodged a complaint to British National Contact Point has submitted a complaint against British company Afrimex to the Brititish National Contact Point under the strengthened procedures for considering breaches of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.

The Global Witness complaint describes how Afrimex, which traded in the minerals coltan and cassiterite (tin ore) throughout the conflict in the DRC from 1996 onwards, made tax payments to the Rassemblement congolais pour la démocratie-Goma (RCD-Goma), an armed rebel group with a well-documented record of carrying out grave human rights abuses, including massacres of civilians, torture and sexual violence. During the conflict, the RCD-Goma controlled large parts of the eastern provinces of North and South Kivu, where coltan and cassiterite are mined. The complaint also highlights the life-threatening conditions in cassiterite mines and the
use of forced labour and child labour. It further alleges that “Afrimex’s payments to the RCD-Goma perpetuated the conflict and strengthened the rebels’ capacity to inflict extreme suffering on the civilian population.

Prospects for corporate responsibility for breaches of fundamental human rights norms might not be so gloomy as it may seem at first instance. However, it may be more feasible to pursue corporate responsibility through the avenues of individual criminal responsibility at international or domestic level. Alternatively, States may have positive obligation to ensure that corporations do not commit any breaches of fundamental norms.

-Jernej Letnar Cernic