Legal Barriers to Transnational Civil Liability Claims for Business- Related Human Rights Abuses: a Rightsholder’s Approach

  • Maria Font-Mas Universitat Rovira i Virgili
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18543/ced-63-2020pp113-151
Keywords: transnational civil liability claims, human rights & business, right to a fair trial

Abstract

The article sets out to identify key barriers that rightsholders face when bringing a business human rights claim against a corporate opponent. It points out each barrier with an illustration from the Akpan & Milieudefensie v. Shell Nigeria & Netherlands case. It presents the main legal obstacles in this type of litigation, such as the filing of the lawsuit, the language of the process, a hypothetical transnational execution of the Dutch judgement in Nigeria. It has a double purpose, namely, to provide the rightsholders in this sort of process (victims and NGOs) information about legal difficulties caused by a transnational claim for damages against a multinational corporation. As well as to confirm the inequality between the parties from the economic and procedural point of view, encouraging the fulfillment of the fundamental rights to a fair trial and right to an effective remedy (art. 6 ECHR and art. 47 CFREU).

Received: 06 April 2020
Accepted: 05 June 2020
Published online: 30 September 2020

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Author Biography

Maria Font-Mas, Universitat Rovira i Virgili
Maria Font-Mas is a PhD in Law (international mention) at the University of Barcelona. Senior Lecturer of Private International Law at Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV-Tarragona). Main areas of teaching and research are in Private International Law. Visiting researcher at Institut Suisse de Droit Comparé, University of Aberdeen, University of Lyon, University of Torino, University of Nijmegen, University McGill (Canada). Her main work-lines cover areas such as foreign authentic acts’s circulation and effects; linguistic and legal coherence of European PIL Regulations’s translations; Business & Human Rights; Social enterprises in European Law (now, digital platforms). Her last works are: Multilingualism in EU Private International Law Regulations: the Chimera of Vertical and Horizontal Coherence? J. Forner & A. Santos (eds.), Coherence of the Scope of Application. EU Private International Legal Instruments, ISDC, Geneva/Zurich 2020, Schulthess Editions Romandes, pp. 43-68; «Plataformas de Capital versus Plataformas Sociales en la Economía Colaborativa: Punto de vista jurídico internacional», (CIRIEC 2018/12); «Human Rights in European Union. A practical handbook for civil society organisations and Human Rights defenders », A. Pigrau et al., Civil Justice Programme of the European Union, (September 2016.); (Dir): El documento público extranjero en España y en la Unión Europea. Estudios sobre las características y efectos del documento público. (Bosch Editor, 2014). She is the coordinator of the Legal Clinic-Service Learning in the University Master’s Degree in Business and Contractual Law (URV). Secretary of the Department of Private, Procedural & Financial Law.
Published
2020-09-30
How to Cite
Font-Mas, Maria. 2020. “Legal Barriers to Transnational Civil Liability Claims for Business- Related Human Rights Abuses: A Rightsholder’s Approach”. Deusto Journal of European Studies, no. 63 (September), 113-51. https://doi.org/10.18543/ced-63-2020pp113-151.
Issue
No. 63 (2020): Business and Human Rights
Section
Articles

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