State Obligations with Regard to the Extraterritorial Activities of Companies Domiciled on their Territories

This chapter focuses on the various ways in which international bodies and courts have dealt with the question of state obligations with regard to the extraterritorial activities of their corporate nationals, specifically exploring mutual influence, similarities and differences in their approaches, as well as possible reasons for divergence. Section 2 defines the contours of these obligations, giving examples of what they might entail in practice. The idea of a form of state responsibility for the overseas activities of their corporate nationals is slowly emerging under the cautious leadership of certain UN human rights mechanisms, as discussed in section 3. While these developments are occurring at the UN level, regional systems remain behind, as shown in section 4. On the whole, it seems as though it is outside human rights systems as such that the most important developments on this question have occurred. Indeed, as the field of business and human rights is growing, international bodies whose mandate is not specifically human rights-oriented have adopted soft law and policy instruments dealing with the question of state ‘obligations’ with regard to the overseas activities of their corporate nationals. Section 5 explores these developments and assesses their contribution to the area.