"Why Arbitrate Business and Human Rights Disputes? Public Consultation Period Open for the Draft Hague Rules on Business and Human Rights Arbitration", 12 Jul 2019

In June 2019, the Draft Hague Rules on Business and Human Rights Arbitration (hereafter, “Draft BHR Arbitration Rules”) was released for global online public consultation, with the consultation period set to end by 25 August 2019...The final version of the Hague Rules on Business and Human Rights Arbitration will be published on 10 December 2019...

In this post...I instead offer my personal observations to examine the essence of main criticisms (see public comments of the Columbia Center for Sustainable Investment here as well as a few questions and comments I received at Harvard Law School in April 2019), directed against having the BHR Arbitration Rules in the first place: 1) whether companies and human rights victims would even consent to arbitration; and 2) if they do consent, whether one should view that consent with skepticism as to the authenticity of arbitration as a mode of access to justice for human rights victims.  The gist of my argument is this: while the BHR Arbitration Rules will never purport to be the exclusively prescribed mechanism for human rights victims of transnational business conduct and neither does it presume to displace State-based judicial or non-judicial remedies, against the realities of a continuing limited universe of legally binding human rights recourse against the impacts of private transnational activities, we cannot afford to close off the arbitral option either...