On Business and Human Rights (Article)

Prof. Zamora Cabot’s course on Human Rights (Donostia-San Sebastian, May 2011), entitled  “La responsabilidad de las empresas multinacionales por violaciones de los derechos humanos: práctica reciente” has just been published in Papeles “El tiempo de los derechos” (ISSN: 1989-8797), and can be downloaded here. In due course it will also appear in the standard form in which these courses are usually published.

The author addresses the most relevant and contemporary items on the topic of human rights, multinational corporations and responsibility: the Protect Respect and Remedy framework of the UN, the Dahl Model Law, the Kiobel case under revision by the USSC…  He also analyses five cases concerning the mineral extraction sector and Canadian companies, and another five of other business areas, among which the case of illness inoculations in Guatemala, involving the U.S. Government.

Worth remarking are the very extensive documentation that supports the study and the selection of cases, from which a panorama of the most interesting data about the current situation of litigation against multinational corporations for human rights violations may be inferred. As means of conclusion, the author speaks in favor of private litigation as necessary in order to compensate -even if only in part -the victims of the atrocities, and also as and effective tool for deterrence.

With this publication Professor Zamora Cabot goes one step further in his already rich literary production (so far probably the richest in Spanish) centered on disputes under the ATS in the business-human rights realm.