There is some disagreement among legal practitioners and scholars as to whether corporations have obligations under international law.

Many argues that only states are bound by international law and that those states are bound to regulate how businesses operate within their borders. Corporations only have a voluntary responsibility to avoid committing human rights violations through their operations.

I kept doing it research in the area of ​​corporate liability for human rights violations since 2006. My most recent work examines the role of multinational corporations (MNCs) in benefiting and perpetuating structural poverty in the Global South.

I argue that international law can no longer exempt corporations from liability for human rights violations, including those arising from poverty. Under certain circumstances, corporations should have obligations under international law to ensure that human rights are met. I argue that this is especially true when it comes to socio-economic rights, such as the rights to housing, education, food, water and healthcare.

International human rights law must be developed to impose duties directly on multinational corporations to alleviate poverty in the developing countries in which they operate.

This is not an absolute duty – it would only occur under certain circumstances and for certain periods of time, as I show in my paper.

Poverty and corporations

Some estimate that up to 1.3 billion people live in poverty – more than 10% of the world’s population, the vast majority in the global south.

Poverty is also deadly. It is estimate that at least 21,300 people die every day because of poverty and inequality. Poverty is a violation of human rights, affecting the rights to dignity, life, food and water.

Businesses have a long history of profiting from human rights abuses. Finance and transport companies have recognized links to the slave trade. European banks according to reports helped South Africa’s apartheid government procure weapons.

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Even when they are not directly responsible for human rights violations, multinational corporations can be complicit. Multinationals based in the global north tend to exploit developing countries for themselves cheap labor, natural resources and weak regulatory frameworks. In other words, corporations benefit from poverty.

International law

In 2005, Professor John Ruggie he was appointed as the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Human Rights and Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises. He developed United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. This framework takes the position that only states are subject to and have obligations under international human rights law.

The UN Guiding Principles are organized around three pillars, known as Protect, respect and fix. The first pillar refers to the obligations of states to uphold human rights. It includes the duty to regulate businesses to ensure that they do not infringe rights through their operations. The second pillar concerns the responsibility of corporations to respect human rights. This is voluntary and not a legal obligation. The third pillar ensures that victims of human rights violations have access to effective remedies.

This framework is based on three factors: states that have the interests of their citizens at heart, corporations that adhere to human rights standards, and effective systems of redress. If all three work together, then the UN Guiding Principles can address corporate responsibility for rights violations.

In practice, however, this is not the case. Many states, especially those in the developing world with high levels of poverty, rely on foreign investment. This creates a power imbalance when negotiating with large multinational corporations. Multinationals are able to demand favorable investment conditionsincluding relaxing laws that could protect human rights.

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According to the UN Guiding Principles, if states do not impose obligations on corporations to respect human rights, they have no such obligations.

Next steps

Not all corporations should have the same duties as states. I propose a set of factors that would determine when a corporation might have an obligation under international human rights law to fulfill socio-economic rights. These factors are:

• the extent of the violation

• the position or vulnerability of the victim

• the urgency of the situation

• if the corporation is the only actor that can fulfill its right.

For example, let’s imagine a scenario where a company operates a mine in the Central African Republic. He built a hospital for his workers and management. Surrounding the mining operations are poor communities that lived in the area before operations began.

One day, a child from one of the settlements is hit by a car. Her injuries are not life-threatening, but they are severe and the child is in terrible pain. The nearest hospital is the private hospital owned by me. There is a public hospital but it is far and traveling there would take time and be expensive. The child’s family rushes her to the mine hospital for emergency treatment. Does the hospital have a legal obligation to admit the child and pay for her treatment?

Applying a combination of factors, the answer is yes. The child is vulnerable by virtue of his age and poverty, the situation is urgent, and the mine hospital is the only entity that can fulfill his right under the given conditions.

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Using this framework, I argue that international human rights law should be developed to mitigate the harms of poverty in the Global South by imposing obligations on corporations that benefit from poverty. Some corporations have a perverse incentive to keep communities poor. International law has a role to play in reversing this state of affairs.

Ultimately, my proposal seeks to revise what we consider to be a fair and just economy. Nothing will change if only states have obligations under international law. The global economic market is neither free nor fair. It has created the worst human rights violations of our time. International human rights law must address this.