Browsing by Subject "Access to Remedy"

Holding multinational corporations (MNCs) accountable for the extraterritorial human rights violations they commit has long been problematic and the skewed power relations between MNCs and individuals (or groups of individuals) are not diminishing – quite the opposite. It is undisputed that the victims of corporate human rights violations face vast obstacles when seeking to realize their right to access to effective remedy. The authoritative United Nations Guiding Principles’ Third Pillar upholds a duty for states to provide access to remedy for victims of human rights violations. This entails that states have an obligation to establish mechanisms in order to hold MNCs judicially liable and should further remove legal, practical and other barriers for action against MNCs. In 2015, 1,826 Zambian citizens from the Chingola District filed suit in the UK after their health and farming activities were damaged by repeated discharges of toxic waste into watercourses used for drinking and irrigation of crops. The toxic discharges allegedly originated from the Nchanga Copper Mine owned by Konkola Copper Mines PLC, a subsidiary of the UK parent company Vedanta Resources PLC. In 2019 the UK Supreme Court gave its unanimous landmark ruling in favour of the Zambian citizens in Vedanta v Lungowe. This case serves as the backbone of this thesis and works as a spearhead into foreign direct liability and the direct duty of care. This master’s thesis set out to answer two main questions. Firstly, within the frame of Vedanta v Lungowe, the task of this thesis is to identify some of the most central legal and practical barriers that victims of corporate human rights violations are faced with when setting on the quest to access judicial remedy. Secondly, the aim is to recognize what the implications of Vedanta v Lungowe could be in a broader context of international law and for the future of foreign direct liability cases. The thesis further introduces some regulatory proposals, such as a state duty to adopt mandatory HRDD practices for parent companies, which would make the responsibilities for MNCs clearer, while also protecting victims of corporate human rights violations and enabling better access to judicial remedy by the removal of some of the central barriers.