Empresas y Derechos Humanos: enfoques regionales
| Autor | Diana María Guevara Duque |
| Cargo | Abogada con una subespecialización en Relaciones Internacionales por la Universidad San Francisco de Quito, MSc en Política Pública Internacional por University College London y LL.M. en Derecho Internacional y Comparado, con mención en Derechos Humanos, por The George Washington University Law School. Correo electrónico: diana.guevara18@gmail... |
| Páginas | 29-44 |
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Dossier
B H R: R A
Empresas y Derechos Humanos: enfoques regionales
D M G D1
Universidad Internacional del Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador
Abstract
Transnational corporations (TNCs) have great political, economic, and legal power around
the world, supported by a structure that protects their interests, situation that is clearer when
TNCs’ activities have adverse impacts on human rights. is has been proven in cases such as
Chevron and its eects in the Ecuadorian Amazon region, or the collapse of the Rana Plaza
building in Bangladesh in 2013.
Against this background, the international community recognized the need to ll
the legal vacuum in regard to TNCs’ activities, and two main frameworks were created. First,
the Norms on the Responsibility of TNCs and other Business Enterprises with regard to
Human Rights (2003), which were never formally adopted; and the Guiding Principles on
Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) (2011), which are strictly voluntary. Afterwards, in
2014, the UN Human Rights Council acknowledged the indispensability of a legally bind-
ing instrument regarding human rights and TNCs, therefore, creating a specialized working
group for this purpose.
e aforementioned eorts are part of the International System, which raises the
following questions: Are regional bodies addressing this issue? Do any of the regional human
rights instruments have dealt with it in any way? e focus of this paper will be to compare
and contrast existent human rights regulations related to transnational corporations’ impact
on human rights, focused on the European and the Inter-American regional systems.
Keywords
Human Rights, Transnational Corporations, Inter-American System, European System,
Standards.
Resumen
Las empresas transnacionales (ETN) tienen un gran poder político, económico y legal en
todo el mundo, respaldado por una estructura que protege sus intereses, situación que se
hace más clara cuando las actividades de las ETN tienen impactos adversos sobre los dere-
chos humanos. Esto ha sido probado en casos como el de Chevron y sus efectos en la región
amazónica ecuatoriana, o el colapso del edicio Rana Plaza en Bangladesh en 2013.
En este contexto, la comunidad internacional reconoció la necesidad de llenar el
vacío legal con respecto a las actividades de las ETN, y se crearon dos marcos principales.
Primero, las Normas sobre la Responsabilidad de las ETN y otras Empresas Comerciales
en materia de Derechos Humanos (2003), que nunca fueron adoptadas; y, los Principios
1 Abogada con una subespecialización en Relaciones Internacionales por la Universidad San Francisco de Quito, MSc
en Política Pública Internacional por University College London y LL.M. en Derecho Internacional y Compara-
do, con mención en Derechos Humanos, por e George Washington University Law School. Correo electrónico:
diana.guevara18@gmail.com; ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8218-9745.
Recibido: 15/06/2021 – Aceptado: 13/06/2022
Iuris Dictio NO 29 / Junio, 2022 / pp. 29-44
e-ISSN 2528-7834 / DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18272/iu.v29i29.2362
30
Diana María Guevara Duque
Iuris Dictio NO 29 / Junio, 2022 / pp. 29-44. e-ISSN 2528-7834. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18272/iu.v29i29.2362
Rectores sobre Empresas y Derechos Humanos (PRNU) (2011), que son estrictamente vo-
luntarios. Posteriormente, en 2014, el Consejo de Derechos Humanos de la ONU reconoció
la necesidad de un instrumento jurídicamente vinculante en materia de derechos humanos y
las ETN, por lo que se creó un grupo de trabajo especializado para tal n.
Los esfuerzos antes mencionados son parte del Sistema Universal, lo que plantea
las siguientes preguntas: ¿Los organismos regionales están abordando el tema? ¿Alguno de
los instrumentos regionales de derechos humanos lo aborda de alguna manera? El enfoque
de este artículo será comparar y contrastar la normativa existente en materia de derechos hu-
manos dirigidas a la regulación del impacto de las empresas transnacionales en los derechos
humanos, tanto dentro del sistema regional europeo como el interamericano.
Palabras clave
Derechos humanos, Empresas transnacionales, Sistema Interamericano, Sistema Europeo,
Estándares.
1. Introduction
Transnational corporations (TNCs) have profound eects on human rights. rough foreign
investment, they bring employment and economic growth for local communities, improving
the living standards of their people and furthermost aiding with the realization of human
rights, economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) in particular, with the consideration that
when discussing ESCR, within the Inter-American system, environmental rights are con-
sidered part of this grouping. Nevertheless, for their political, economic, and legal power,
there is a potential harm and adverse impacts on human rights, like infringements to the
rights to life and health or widespread environmental damages (McBeth, 2010, p. 245). is
has been proven in cases such as Chevron and its eects in the Ecuadorian Amazon region,
or the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh in 2013. ere is a variety of human
rights that could be potentially infringed by TNCs’ activities, including the rights to life,
personal integrity, dignity, freedom of expression, access to information, to live free from
discrimination and violence, and to judicial protection and remedies.
A corporation can be involved in human rights violations in dierent ways. As listed
by Jason Karp (2014), in rst place, the corporation might be “complicit with a state’s human
rights violations”. Secondly, it may have involvement in a situation “which [it is] bound up
in daily aspects of governance together with states and where human rights violations are said
to occur”. Finally, there is the option “in which companies have greater freedom of action
from state interference/regulation […], leading to accusations of human rights violations” (p.
16). Much has been discussed, both academically and legally, regarding the best approach and
method to regulate TNC’s activities, whereas if they should be separated from domestic-level
discussions and if human rights standards used for other non-state actors can be similarly
applied, and if it possible, how to apply them (Karp, 2014, p. 16). e general opinion of
the international community is that there is a need to ll the legal vacuum with regards to
TNCs’ activities.
Legal development has occurred in the International Human Rights System in these
matters, which raises the question: Are regional bodies addressing the issue? If so, do regional
human rights instruments deal with this issue? e focus of this paper will be to compare
existing regulations related to TNCs’ impact on human rights between the European and the
American regional systems. To achieve this, it is important to start with a brief revision of
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