I Book Review: Corporate Human Rights Obligations: In Search of Accountability
| Published date | 01 June 2005 |
| Date | 01 June 2005 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/016934410502300212 |
| Subject Matter | Part C: DocumentationI Book Review |
308
Nicola Ja
¨gers,
Corporate Human Rights Obligations: in Search of Accounta-
bility,
Intersentia, Antwerp, 2002, 260 p., ISBN 90-5095-240-2*
In this well-organised doctoral study, Nicola Ja
¨gers attempts to address several
questions that vex many an international lawyer and human rights activist today. Are
corporations duty bearers under international human rights law? If so, how can
those duties be enforced? If not, then what?
Finding answers to these questions has reached almost desperate proportions in
this era of economic globalisation. Corporations, especially multi-nationals, have
become giant monoliths possessing the capacity to affect the lives of billions of
people; sometimes, more so than governments. The negative impact of their
activities, together with those of multi-lateral financial institutions and the WTO,
have drawn howls of protest worldwide, fuelling the formation of perhaps the most
successful global protest movement in world history.
The past few decades has seen attempts by the UN, ILO and OECD to come up
with voluntary codes of conduct for multi-national corporations that focus on
human rights imperatives. As Ja
¨gers rightly points out (pp. 249-250), the non-
binding codes have at best achieved only marginal success. It was too ambitious to
assume that the corporate world would voluntarily amend their bad habits. The
debate, therefore, has to move on in search of a stronger regulatory regime. As the
current debate in the sessional working group on transnational corporations of the
UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights indicates,
the growing consensus is that the role of the UN in this regard is to formulate not
mere guidelines but a code that would eventually legally bind corporate entities. The
process of developing such a code, however, has to be successful in finding answers
to questions that Ja
¨gers attempts to address.
The value of Jagers’ study is that it methodically pulls together the various strands
of thought presented and the developments on the subject taking place at the
international, regional and national levels. The study consists of three parts with the
introductory chapter providing the definitions and the scope of the study. Part A
deals with the doctrinal issues relating to the question of whether corporations are
subject to obligations under international human rights law. Having answered that
most crucial question in the affirmative, the author then exhaustively deals with the
existence or absence of enforcement and implementation mechanisms in Part B.
The summary, conclusions and recommendations are set out in Part C.
Perhaps it was inevitable that when reading the book my intellectual curiosity was
mainly aroused by the analysis of doctrinal issues. The challenge of taking on this
subject is certainly in untying the doctrinal knots. Once those issues are sorted out
the rest may, in comparison, seem easy. In Part A the author first discusses whether
corporations could be located within the evolving legal framework on international
legal personality. Then she discusses whether corporations can be obligated under
international human rights law in relation to the concept of Drittwirkung, in this
context used to mean the horizontal application of international human rights
norms.The last section of Part A discusses the international human rights norms
that arguably could impose obligations on private entities, including corporations.
Documentation
* Deepika Udagama is Head of the Department of Law, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka and serves
on the Editorial Board of the NQHR.
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