Is an International Arbitral Tribunal the Answer to International Human Rights Litigation?
I just was alerted to a proposal that was put forward to create an International Arbitral Tribunal on business and human rights. The authors of the proposal are Claes Cronstedt, Robert C Thompson, Rachel Chambers, Adrienne Margolis, David Rönnegard and Katherine Tyler, all (save for Ms Margolis, a journalist, and Dr Rönnegard, a philosopher and economist) one-time or current private practice lawyers with a background and/or practice in human rights and CSR.
The initiative seeks to respond, in part, to the US Supreme Court’s decisions in Kiobel v Royal Dutch Petroleum and Daimler AG v Bauman. In short, it is now difficult to plead international human rights violations against corporations in U.S. courts. As I discuss in a forthcoming article, foreign courts may move in to fill the gap. This proposal raises another question: Are international tribunals the right forum for such cases?