Memorandum for the Petitioners |126
human rights impacts through the legal sale of its products.*’ Each business
is expected to carry out its human rights responsibilities autonomously even
if the individual roles and contributions to climate change differ, as every
business, regardless of size or sector, is expected to respect human rights
under Principle 14 of UNGPs.*°° An enterprise theory of corporate
personhood entails that the activities of the whole group of companies -- and
specifically the GHG emissions attributable to the group as a whole -- should
be aggregated and attributed to the parent entity.
The UN Guiding Principles on Business
and Human Rights: Implementing the UN
“protect, respect, and remedy” framework
8.158. Businesses have significant responsibilities to respect human
rights, and States must
ensure corporate compliance
with these
responsibilities and provide for corporate accountability and access to justice
when standards are not met.*®! States also have direct obligations, known as
duties, because of the undertakings that they have willingly made through
treaties or other sources of law.
8.159.Business
enterprises,
on
the
other
hand,
have
significant
responsibilities, as opposed to direct obligations, under international law.
This does not diminish the significance of corporate responsibilities, as they
can also be drawn from national legislation or guidelines following States’
implementation of their international obligations.°”
8.160.As mentioned, the responsibility to respect human rights
arises from a global standard of expected conduct for all business
enterprises wherever they operate. This exists over and above compliance
with national laws and regulations protecting human rights and independently
of States’ abilities or willingness to fulfill their own human rights obligations.
This responsibility also exists independently of an enterprise’s own
commitment to human rights.°”
589 United Nations Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (2012), The Corporate
Responsibility to Respect Human Rights: An Interpretive Guide, pp. 46-49 (hereinafter, “Interpretive
Guide”), available at https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/HR.PUB.12.2_En.pdf (last accessed
06 September 2019)
59 See Exhibit “QQQ” to “QQQ-8,” Profile and Statement of Michael K. Addo, dated 20 May 2018, p. 8.
591 De Schutter, O., et al., (2012), Commentary to the Maastricht principles on extraterritorial obligations
of states in the area of economic, social and cultural rights. Human Rights Quarterly, 34 (4), pp. 1084-
1169. ISSN 0275-0392, available at
http://eprints.Ise.ac.uk/47404/1/__Ise.ac.uk_storage_LIBRARY_Secondary_libfile_shared_repository_Cont
ent_Salomon,%20M_Commentary%20to%20Maastricht%20principles_Salomon_Commentary%20Maastri
cht%20principles_2015.pdf (last accessed on 12 September 2019).
592 Addo. M., supra note 590, p. 8.
53 Interpretative Guide, supra note 589, pp. 13-14.
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