International Responsibility of Business for Violation of Human Rights – Customers’ Perspective

This paper deals with possible avenues for enforcement liability of human rights violations that occur in less industrially developed countries. Since food, clothing and other economic goods are often produced in states where the rule of law may not be as effective as elsewhere, it is difficult to both establish and remedy the human rights violations that are frequently seen to occur in such states. Therefore, the paper analyses whether it would be possible to remedy human rights violations from abroad, in other words from within those states where these products are sold to end-users. The paper focuses on selected instruments of international, European and national law in order to establish whether a remedy for such violations is present. It takes the bottom-up principle, i.e. it concentrates on such instruments which might be used by individuals, consumers in particular, rather than by states. The outcome of the contrib ution is that, in theory, it is possible to hold retailers partially liable for human rights violations as a means of applying remote leverage on the manufacturers.The paper was prepared within project APVV-17-0641 “Improvement of effectiveness of legal regulation of public procurement and its application within EU law context”.Ondrej Blažo Received: ondrej.blazo@flaw.uniba.skMária T. Patakyová: maria.patakyova2@flaw.uniba.skOndrej Blažo – associate professor in European law specialising in competition law and economic integration, currently Director of the Institute of European Law and Vice Dean of the Faculty of Law of Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia. Previously he has been a senior state counsel at the Antimonopoly Office of the Slovak Republic fulfilling duties as case handler and has also been responsible for preparation of legislation (he co-authored several legislative documents on Slovak competition rules) and representation at EU bodies, particularly the Commission’s advisory boards and European Competition Network.Mária Patakyová – assistant professor at the Institute of European Law, Faculty of Law, Comenius University in Bratislava (Slovakia). She completed her master’s studies in law with distinction (2014) and PhD studies (2017) at the Faculty of Law of Comenius University in Bratislava. She is a graduate of the Cambridge Diploma in British Law and European Union Law (2012). Part of her studies were done at Faculty of Law of Ljubljana University, Slovenia. She also studied and undertook research at Tilburg Law School in the Netherlands. Regarding her research, she has focused mainly on the protection of human rights in Europe, business human rights, national and European competition law (including zero-price markets), internal market law, migration law and consumer law. She has published in journals and proceedings from conferences both in Slovakia and abroad.Ondrej Blažo Received - Comenius University in BratislavaMária T. 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