This book is the first milestone of the research project Human Rights & Business: regulatory framework and corporate duties, which took its first steps in 2021, in the “CIDP | Lisbon Public Law”, the Research Center in Public Law of the Legal-Political Sciences Institute, of the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon (FDUL). This hard copy is the selection of core legal documents (soft and hard law) on human rights and business (HR&B), from a larger collection published in eBook in parallel.
Today, the HR&B topic is one of the most “tip of the spear” challenges for legal science, and particularly for the science of Public Law, spreading across several branches of Public Law, notably International Law, Administrative Law and European Law in particular, but also Constitutional Law, and also some aspects of Political Science are still relevant. This interdisciplinarity is further reinforced by the relation with disciplines from other areas of legal science – namely, Legal-Economics and Private Law, as the composition of the research team reflects, including the project’s pool of advisers.
The HR&B project intends to produce legal scientific knowledge that can be translated into practical aspects, as an instrument that can be used by companies to adapt their modus to comply with international rules and standards in this matter. Thus, it is a project that is both scientific and of capacity building, and that might help Portuguese companies in their internationalization. In fact, we’re on the path towards a reality in which non-compliance with these rules and standards will create obstacles, if not impediments, to access certain markets (public and private), access to credit, or which will make the operation of the “non-compliant” economic initiative more expensive and less sought after.

Contents

I. GLOBAL LEVEL
A. UNITED NATIONS CORE DOCUMENTS
1. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework
2. Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 25 September 2015 (A/ RES/70/1)
B. UNITED NATIONS DOCUMENTS ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF HR&B
1. Resolutions
a) Establishment of a Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises (A/HRC/ RES/17/4 – 16/06/2011)
b) Business and human rights: improving accountability and access to remedy (A/HRC/RES/32/10 – 30/06/2016)
c) Improving accountability and access to remedy (A/HRC/RES/38/ 13 – 18/7/2018)
d) Improving accountability and access to remedy (A/HRC/RES/44/ 15 – 23/07/2020)
e) New and emerging digital technologies and human rights (A/HRC/ RES/47/23 – 16/7/2021)
2. Reports
2.1. Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises
a) National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights (A/69/263 – 5/8/2014)
C. UN CONVENTION ON HR&B
1. Elaboration of an international legally binding instrument on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights (A/HRC/RES/26/9 – 14/7/2014)
2. Draft articles on a Legally binding instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises (17/08/2021)
3. Draft Optional Protocol to the Legally Binding Instrument to Regulate, in International Human Rights Law, the Activities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises
D. OECD INITIATIVES
1. Recommendation of the Council on the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct (2018)
2. OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct (2018)
3. OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (2011)

II. EUROPEAN LEVEL
A. EUROPEAN UNION
1. European Parliament resolution of 10 March 2021 with recommendations to the Commission on corporate due diligence and corporate accountability (2020/2129(INL)
B. COUNCIL OF EUROPE
1. Human rights and business (Resolution 1757(2010) – Parlam. Ass.)
2. Human rights and business (Recommendation 1936(2010) – Parl. Ass.)
3. Declaration Comm. of Ministers on the UN Guiding Principles on B&HR (2014)
4. Recommendation CM/Rec(2016)3 – Comm. of Ministers
5. CONF/PLE(2017)REC2 – Conf. INGOs

III. CASE LAW
A. EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS
1. Anheuser-Busch Inc. v. Portugal (2007)
2. OAO Neft. Komp. Yukos v. Russia (2014)
3. G.I.E.M. SRL et al. v. Italy (2018)
4. Parsadanyan v. Armenia (2019)
B. INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION
1. Southern Pacific Properties (Middle East) Ltd. v. Egypt (1992)
2. Chevron Corp. v. Ecuador (2010)
3. Philip Morris Asia Ltd. v. Australia (2015)
4. Copper Mesa Mining Corp. v. Ecuador (2016)
5. Urbaser S.A. et al. v. Argentina (2016)
6. D. Aven et al. v. Costa Rica (2018)