From the Netherlands: with love?: Legal protection and multinational corporations

Key questions:

• What are the legal consequences of the corporation as a potential subject of international law and how can it be ensured that in terms of symmetrical legal protection not only obligations for corporations are imposed, but that the legal protection of corporations themselves is also provided for under international law?
• Contrary to traditional human rights law, the legal protection of corporations cannot be grounded on the principle ‘inherent in human dignity’. What should be the foundation of and the justification for the international protection of rights for corporations, especially in their position as defendants in legal proceedings?
• What are the implications of the applicability of human rights norms to corporations (either as duty bearers or as rights bearers) for the fundamental debate on the horizontal effect of human rights norms?
• How should the obligation to ensure that companies do not cause or contribute to breaches of human rights obligations be implemented in the Dutch legal order?

Researchers