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jwit-article-10.1163-22119000-12340278
Journal article

Investor Human Rights and Environmental Obligations: The Need to Redesign Corporate Social Responsibility Clauses

  • 2023
Published in:
  • Journal of World Investment & Trade. - 2023, p. 1-38
access to remedy, corporate social responsibility, environmental protection, human rights, investor accountability, investor liability, investor obligations, United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights
English The article explores the utility of corporate social responsibility (CSR) clauses in inter- national investment agreements to achieve responsible investor conduct on human rights and environmental protection. It provides an empirical overview of the content of such CSR clauses and offers a critical analysis on how and why these clauses, regard- less of their formulation, have not yet led to effective investor accountability. Building on the weaknesses identified, it proposes to design new clauses on ‘investor human rights and environmental obligations’ that incorporate established international stan- dards of responsible conduct, such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights; directly address investors as duty-bearers; explicitly recognise affected communities as beneficiaries of the inves- tor obligations; and clarify the central question of access to remedy by providing for clear mechanisms of foreign investor liability in both the domestic courts of the home State and of the host State, separated from any counterclaim a host State may raise in an arbitration proceeding.
Language
  • English
Classification
Law, jurisprudence
License
CC BY
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://n2t.net/ark:/51647/srd1324084
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