An Evaluation of Two Key Extraterritorial Techniques to Bring Human Rights Standards to Bear on Corporate Misconduct. Jurisdictional Dilemma Raised/Created by the Use of the Extraterritorial Techniques

This article evaluates two key extraterritorial techniques to bring human rights standards to bear on corporate misconduct, and does so through an analysis of the jurisdictional dilemma they raise. The background to the article is the difficulty of imposing human rights standards on transnational business operating in ‘host’ countries where, for various reasons, such standards are not implemented locally, resulting in governance gaps. Civil litigation in the company’s ‘home’ state and ‘long arm’ regulation emanating from the home state are important alternative methods of establishing and enforcing human rights standards, but they engender controversy both in terms of their legitimacy under public international law and because there are a number of objections to their use that go beyond their technical legality. Concerns include intrusion into the exclusive jurisdiction of the host state to control this litigation or to determine and follow its own regulatory policy in this area, and the related concern about home state imperialism/neocolonialism. The article evaluates whether these concerns raise true dilemmas. For those that do, it offers suggestions for how to adapt or refine extraterritorial techniques.