Corporate human rights obligations under socio-economic rights

In the chapter it is examined obligations of business in the field of socio-economic rightsThe author proceeds from the understanding of the importance of socio-economic rights to ensurethe livelihood of people and the creation of human opportunities, as well as their fundamental naturein terms of enjoying civil and political rights. The author is convinced that not only states, but alsocorporations, have certain obligations in the field of socio-economic rights. Because socioeconomicrights are linked to financial resources, corporations can make a significant contribution to securingthem in case of state fragility.The author analyzes international documents, compares national legal systems, as well as othersources (decisions of treaty bodies on human rights), and he concludes that corporate obligationsgain their legitimacy due to the horizontal application of national and international human rights law.It is noted that the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the OECD Guidelines forTransnational Enterprises, the UN Global Compact, the ILO Tripartite Declaration play a significantrole in promoting corporate human rights obligations in the field of socio-economic rights.The author also analyzes the significance of voluntary commitments of both individual corporationsand individual sectors that are generally the part of corporate policy and suggests their questionablelegal nature (lex imperfecta), as they do not provide sanctions for their violation.Analyzing the features of corporate obligations under socio-economic rights, the author takes asa basis the negative and positive dichotomy of human rights, as well as the approach embodied ininternational human rights law on three types of human rights obligations – to respect, protect, ensure.The author concludes that within each of the types of socio-economic rights obligations, corporationshave both preventive (negative and positive) and some corrective (negative and positive) obligations,especially where they control and/or or influence or in proximity of their operations.