Corporate Human Rights Obligations: A Jurisprudential Analysis

As the power of corporations grew, the impacts of corporations on human rights became remarkable. An increasing number of practioners and scholars argued that corporations should bear human rights obligations. The issues regarding human rights obligations were discussed among the academia of philosophy, ethnics, economics, sociology, politics, and law. However, the Inter-disciplinary dialogues were not efficient because of conceptual confusions. The researches by legal professionals were also limited. They focused on selected issues, but paid little attention to basic theories. The subjects of this dissertation were 1) to define and clarify the conception of "corporate human rights obligations"; 2) to study its nature, scope, and contents; 3) to demonstrate its legitimacy; and 4) to research on the institutions addressing corporate human rights obligations.Chapter 1 was about the conception of "corporate human rights obligations". It used the methodology of semantic analysis to compare the conceptions of "corporation", "company", "obligation" and "responsibility". It also studied the relations between corporate social responsibilities and corporate human rights obligations. It argued that corporate human rights obligations were a set of behavior measurements which requested corporations to take actions or not to take actions according to human rights needs.Chapter 2 demonstrated the theoretic basis for corporations to bear human rights obligations. It stated that corporations were "business subjects", "social subjects" and "political subjects". The legal theories and principles about the restrictions on property rights, "public order and good custom", and public interests provided the legal basis for human rights obligations of the corporations as "business/private subjects". The theories of social contract and stakeholders could be used to justify human rights obligations of the corporations as "social subjects". Finally, the theories of corporate citizenship and corporate constitutionalism could be used to justify human rights obligations of the corporations as "political subjects".Chapter 3 demonstrated the possibility of corporations to bear human rights obligations. It was divided into two levels. On the legal level, corporations were treated as legal persons in most domestic jurisdictions. There were also a lot of facts that could prove corporate legal personality in the international law. On the moral level, corporations had moral capacity within a limited scope, and could act as a kind of moral agent.Chapter 4 was about the contents of corporate human rights obligations. It stated that the basic content of corporate human rights obligations was to respect human rights. And in order to achieve that, corporations should pay close attention to human rights and take human rights into account during their operations, should acknowledge human rights values and principles, and should comply with the authority of human rights institutions. From the positive perspective, corporations should respect human rights through human rights due diligence. From the passive perspective, corporations should avoid direct human rights violations, as well as indirect human rights violations, including direct complicity, indirect complicity, beneficial complicity, and silent complicity.Chapter 5 dealt with the institutions and norms regarding corporate human rights obligations. It was divided into three sections. The first section was about international law, including "hard law" and "soft law". The second section was about domestic law, including constitutional law, civil law, economic law, criminal law, and human rights law. The third section was about informal institutions, including multi-stakeholders norms, third party norms, and industrial norms.