Daniel Augenstein

When Human Rights ‘Responsibilities’ become ‘Duties’: The Extra-Territorial Obligations of States that Bind Corporations

This essay addresses two critical, intersecting, questions regarding the legal status of responsibility for corporate abuses of human rights standards as portrayed in the UN’s Business and Human Rights Framework and Guiding Principles. One relates to the obligations of states to regulate corporations in this respect, and the other to the extent that they can and must do so extra-territorially. By reconstructing the nature of the relationship between the first and the second pillar of the UN Framework, combined with a critique of the relationship between the authority under general international law for a state to regulate corporate behavior extra-territorially (the ‘permissive question’), and the obligation for it to do so under international human rights laws (the ‘prescriptive question’) the authors reach the following conclusion. That in order for a state to comply fully with its human rights obligations under international law, it must ensure the protection of human rights to those who fall within its jurisdiction, whether inside or outside its territorial boundaries, and against threats to their rights, whether from state or non-state actors over which the state has jurisdiction.

Beyond the 100 Acre Wood: In which International Human Rights Law Finds New Ways to Tame Global Corporate Power

States and corporations are being forced out of their comfort zones. A consensus is building among international human rights courts and committees that states can and will be held accountable for overseas human rights abuses by corporations domiciled in their respective territories. The authors suggest that this development is rooted in a transition from a territory-based to a subject-based approach to human rights obligations that de-centres international human rights law from state territory. In this article, they construct a conceptual framework for understanding how and why this is happening and articulate what are and will be the consequences for the theory and practice of international human rights law.

Tolerance and Liberal Justice

Tolerance, the mere “putting up” with disapproved behaviour and practices, is often considered a too negative and passive engagement with difference in the liberal constitutional state. In response, liberal thinkers have either discarded tolerance, or assimilated it to the moral and legal precepts of liberal justice. In contradistinction to these approaches I argue that there is something distinctive and valuable about tolerance that should not be undermined by more ambitious, rights-based models of social cooperation. I develop a conception of tolerance as a complementary principle and an interim value that is neither incompatible with, nor reducible to, rights-based liberalism. Tolerance represents a particular, non-communitarian expression of the general dictum that the liberal state, having released its citizens into liberty, rests on social presuppositions it cannot itself guarantee.

Negotiating the hard/soft law divide in business and human rights : The implementation of the UNGPs in the European Union

The article discusses the implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) in the European Union against the backdrop of perennial debates between proponents of ‘hard’ versus ‘soft’ law approaches to preventing and redressing corporate-related human rights violations. It argues that the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) – an EU governance instrument of transnational policy-making – could contribute to negotiating the hard/soft law divide in business and human rights by ensuring a more effective implementation of the UNGPs in the European legal space. Moreover, the European experience with open coordination calls for a reappraisal of the relationship between international law and global governance in addressing today’s business and human rights predicament. The first part of the article situates the debate between proponents of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ law approaches to business and human rights in the context of two UN-driven initiatives: the development of national action plans (NAPs) to implement the UNGPs; and the negotiation of an international business and human rights treaty. The second part of the article relates experiences with the existing NAP process in the European Union to the policy background and rationale of the Open Method of Coordination and discusses the conditions for its successful employment in the business and human rights domain.

After Brexit : Time for a further decoupling of European and national citizenship?

The aftermath of the Brexit referendum has produced a whole series of uncertainties, many of which surround citizenship. Much of the UK debate in the last weeks has focused on the varying levels of guarantees UK politicians are willing make to EU citizens who have made their lives in the UK. German politicians, up to and including Germany’s Vice-Chancellor, have proposed (following ideas advanced in the Verfassungsblog) to secure an easier path to citizenship for Britons living in other EU states. Finally, what will happen to the citizens of those parts of the UK who voted decisively to remain in the Union? Over 5 million Scots, and 1.8 million Northern Irish, face the removal of EU citizenship rights they voted in large numbers to keep.

Freedom of Religion and the Politics of the Liberal Public-Private Divide

The article considers the role of the liberal public-private divide in protecting religious minorities against national-majoritarian assault. It links the defense of the public-private divide to liberal neutrality and argues that it rests on two distinct propositions: that the distinction between the ‘public sphere’ and the ‘private sphere’ is a meaningful way to cognise and structure modern pluralistic societies; and that there is a meaningful way to distinguish what is or ought to be ‘public’ from what is or ought to be ‘private’. While the latter proposition cannot be defended on grounds of liberal neutrality, the former proposition provides the institutional framework for conducting liberal politics by enabling the negotiation of the public and the private between national majorities and religious minorities as members of the same political community.

Extraterritorialer Menschenrechtsschutz und Unternehmensverantwortung: Eine europäische Perspektive

Im Herbst 2009 hat die Europaische Kommission eine Studie in Auftrag gegeben, die auf Grundlage der Arbeit des UN Sonderbeauftragten fur Wirtschaft und Menschenrechte, John Ruggie, den fur den Menschenrechts- und Umweltschutz relevanten Rechtsrahmen fur europaische Unternehmen, die auserhalb der EU operieren, beleuchten sollte. Die Studie sollte sich insbesondere mit der extraterritorialen Dimension der staatlichen Schutzpflicht (die erste Saule des UN Protect Respect Remedy Framework) in Bezug auf multinationale Unternehmen beschaftigen. Eine Zielsetzung war es, die allgemeinen rechtlichen Problemstellungen und Regelungslucken, die sich aus dem Spannungsverhaltnis von staatsbezogenen Menschenrechtsverpflichtungen und global operierenden Wirtschaftsunternehmen ergeben, aus europaischer Perspektive darzustellen. Auf dieser Grundlage sollten einzelne Rechtsbereiche – vom Menschen- und Umweltrecht uber Handels- und Investitionsrecht bis hin zum Strafrecht, Gesellschaftsrecht und internationalen Privatrecht, naher beleuchtet werden. Dieser Beitrag fasst in groben Zugen einige der wesentlichen Forschungsergebnisse der nun vorliegenden Studie zusammen. Die grundlegenden Aussagen der Studie bleiben von den spater veroffentlichten UN Richtlinien, mit denen der UN Sonderbeauftragte sein Mandat abgeschlossen hat, unberuhrt.

Some preliminaries to global law and human rights

The article considers the relationship between economic globalisation and the universalisation of legal human rights obligations.