1st Edition
Corporate Human Rights Violations Global Prospects for Legal Action
Introduction: The Rarefied Politics of Global Legal Struggles
Introduction: Corporate Human Rights Violations
Human Rights and Corporate Accountability
A Mirror Image?
The Rarefied Politics of Global Consent
Global Social Ordering
Counter-hegemony and Resistance?
The Structure of the Book
Chapter One: From Economic Cannibalism to Corporate Human Rights LIabilities
Introduction
Corporations, Human Rights and the UN
Corporations as Bearers of Rights
Corporations as Political Institutions
The Draft Norms
Lobbying the Norms
The NGO Lobby
Conclusion: Untangling the Roots of UN Policy
Chapter Two: Different Shades of Voluntarism
Introduction
The Global Compact: ‘Support Group’ or ‘Good Old Boys Club’?
An American in the Court of King Kofi
The "Continuation of a Business-Friendly Agenda"?
The Guiding Principles
A Fake Consensus
Conclusion
Chapter Three: A Manufactured Consent
Introduction
Evaluating the Role of the OECD Guidelines
Complaints Taken by NGOs
Mutual Agreement?
No Enforcement
Corporate Structural Advantage
Conclusion
Chapter Four: Tort Law and the Struggle Against Corporate Human Rights Violations
Introduction
The Civil Justice System and Corporate Accountability
Alien Tort Claims Act 1789
The Business Lobby Celebrates
European Transnational Tort Cases
Transnational Jurisdiction and the Imperial Court
Transnational Struggle?
Conclusion: Nearly Absolute Non-Accountability
Chapter Five: Struggles for Corporate Accountability in the Human Rights Courts
Introduction
Positive and Negative Obligations
Positive Obligations into the Private Sphere
The Horizontal Effect in the European System
The Horizontal Effect in the Inter-American System
NGOs and the Struggle for Recognition
Struggles for Collective Rights
Conclusion
Chapter Six: ‘Human’ Rights for Profit
Introduction
The Corporate Victim
Corporate Rights in Europe
Corporate Rights at the Inter-American Court
Corporate Law Trumps Human Rights Law
Political Struggles for Corporate Rights
Conclusion: New Mechanisms of Accountability for Corporate Human Rights Violations?
Making Struggles Around Human Rights Visible
Moving Towards a Treaty?
A Peoples’ Tribunal?
Biography
Stéfanie Khoury is Research Associate the University of Liverpool, UK. Her research focuses on the lack of accountability of state and corporate violations of human rights.
David Whyte is Professor in Socio-legal Studies at the University of Liverpool, UK, where he specialises in teaching and researching the relationship between corporate power and law.
