Horizontal Human Rights Law

Bibliographic Data

ID9554792
AuthorsJohn H Knox (0000-0003-3631-1700, Wake Forest University, corresponding author)
Year2008
Volume102
Issue1
Pages1-47
Publication date2008-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Journal of International Law (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-9300 • E-ISSN: 2161-7953
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0002930000039828
OpenAlexW1520531292
LanguageEN
Citations received21
References cited8

What duties, if any, does international human rights law establish for individuals, corporations, and other private actors? For many years, the conventional answer has been that it places duties on states to respect the rights of individuals and creates few or no private duties. In other words, human rights law is aligned vertically, not horizontally. But that view has regularly been challenged. Most recently, in 2003, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (Commission), historically the most important incubator of human rights agreements, received two proposed instruments that might appear to realign human rights law horizontally: private actors would have duties as well as rights, and they would owe those duties to society as a whole or to individuals within it. The draft Declaration on Human Social Responsibilities (Declaration) would identify duties that all individuals owe to their societies; and the Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights (draft Norms) would set out duties of businesses under human rights law. The Human Rights Commission did not embrace the proposals before its replacement by the Human Rights Council in 2006, and the Council has not considered them. Both received some support, however, and it seems likely that their proponents will continue to pursue adoption of their principles in one form or another. This article argues that if adopted, those principles would cause serious damage to human rights law

Converse · Fundamental rights · Harm · Human rights · International human rights law · Law and economics · Political science · Private law · Public law · Reservation of rights · Right to property · Sociology · Corporate Law and Human Rights · Human Rights and Development · International Law and Human Rights · Law