Current regulatory efforts in the European Union (EU) (the proposal for a Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive) and in the United Nations (UN) (the draft for a Legally Binding Instrument to Regulate, in International Human Rights Law, the Activities of Transnational Corporations and other Business Enterprises) seek to bring States to activate and operationalise their domestic public law, private law, and criminal law for preventing and mitigating human rights abuses in the context of transnational business activities.
The paper maps the current legal landscape, including the international, European, and Inter-American case law on human rights obligations of business actors. It argues against a direct opposability of international human rights treaties against business actors, with the exception of peremptory human rights. The paper uses the domestic law examples of the French Loi de Vigilance and the German Lieferkettensorgfaltspflichtengesetz to explain how the various levels and branches of law can complement each other, with private and administrative law standing in the foreground, and criminal legal enforcement as a means of last resort. The national and potential European rules need to be aligned to the overarching standards set by international human rights law. The combination of international law with domestic administrative, private, and criminal law promises an effective enforcement of human rights vis-à-vis global corporations.
