Recent Developments on the Transnational Business and Human Rights Litigations: the Kiobel III

  • María Chiara Marullo Universitat Jaume I
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18543/ced-63-2020pp57-80
Keywords: access to justice, extraterritoriality, transnational litigations, business and human rights, Kiobel

Abstract

Victims of corporate abuses encounter numerous obstacles to access justice; both from the State in whose territory the abuses have been verified and in the country of origin of the corporations. Recent decisions of the European Courts; such as the Dutch in the Kiobel III case; are opening a new path that; if successful; could be a very important step forward for the future of transnational litigation on business and human rights. Prior to those cases; the European courts; where the parent companies are domiciled or headquartered; opened their doors in cases of corporate abuses perpetrated by subsidiaries in third countries; based on the forum of necessity or the prohibition of access denial to justice; not finding another forum where victims could assert their rights. In the aforementioned cases; the courts accepted their competence understanding that they can know the abuses of matrix and subsidiaries; when there is a connection that allows the subsidiary to be attracted to the state of origin; supporting the existence of a unitary concept of company; where the matrix makes the decisions and strategies of all the companies that belong to the group and that; therefore; would be under their control.

Received: 06 April 2020
Accepted: 27 April 2020
Published online: 30 September 2020

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

María Chiara Marullo, Universitat Jaume I
Assistant Professor of Private International Law, Law Faculty, Department of Private Law, Universitat Jaume I. Member of the network: REDH-EXATA, redhexata.com. Doctor cum laude from the Universitat Jaume I (2014) and Jaime Brunet Award for the best doctoral thesis for the promotion of Human Rights, Public University of Navarra (2016). Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Finance and Accounting, Universitat Jaume I. Research group: «Sustainability of Organizations and Management of Social Responsibility – Financial Markets» and « Human Rights and Fundamental Rights». Researcher in the «SMART Sustainable Market Actors for Responsible Trade» European Project (2016- 2020); collaborator in the project: «Global climate constitution: governance and law in a complex context» (2017-2019), and researcher in the European Project «Human Rights in Business» (2014-2016).
Published
2020-09-30
How to Cite
Chiara Marullo, María. 2020. “Recent Developments on the Transnational Business and Human Rights Litigations: The Kiobel III”. Deusto Journal of European Studies, no. 63 (September), 57-80. https://doi.org/10.18543/ced-63-2020pp57-80.
Issue
No. 63 (2020): Business and Human Rights
Section
Articles

The author grants to the Publisher the distribution, public communication, and reproduction rights of her/his work subject of publication in Deusto Journal of European Studies (DJES), whichever the media may be, including the permission to include it in the databases where this Journal is indexed and in the institutional repository of the Universidad de Deusto.

Upon its publication, the content of any Issue of Deusto Journal of European Studies (DJES) can be accessed, read, downloaded, copies, and distributed freely for non-commercial purposes and in accordance with any applicable copyright legislation.

The content of Deusto Journal of European Studies (DJES) can be subsequently published in other media or journals, as long as the author clearly indicates in the first footnote that the work was published in Deusto Journal of European Studies (DJES) for the first time, indicating the Issue number, year, pages, and DOI (if applicable). Any other use of its content in any medium or format, now known or developed in the future, requires prior written permission of the copyright holder.

The content of the work published in Deusto Journal of European Studies (DJES) is each author's sole responsibility. The authors assume the responsibility of obtaining all the necessary licenses for the reproduction in their manuscripts of any text, material or illustration coming from another author, institution or publication. The liabilities that may arise from complaints for publishing plagiarised articles are the sole responsibility of the author.