Human rights as standards for transnational economic law

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The project analyses the impact of international human rights on transnational economic law. Transnational economic law encompasses private and public law rules of national and international origin which relate to international economic transactions. It includes binding rules as well as formally non-binding standards. On the one hand, the project seeks to assess to which extent and in which way human rights standards already exist in contemporary transnational economic law. One the other hand, the project will indicate where the impact of human rights is still missing and how this can be changed. The project pursues three main objectives: First, it seeks to supplement and deepen existing research through the study of areas, instruments and governance layers which have not been at the centre of the research concerning human rights and transnational economic law until now. Second, the project's results will be used to further develop general international law and human rights theory. Third, the project aims to deliver results and propose solutions for problems which are of relevance for legal and political practice and therefore contribute to practical improvements of the international protection of human rights.The project consists of four concrete fields of analysis: First, human rights aspects of the transnational law of raw materials shall be analysed. In particular, it will be asked how human rights can be concterised as standards for transnational raw material law. Second, the project assesses the 2011 version of the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises, which contain a specific chapter on human rights. This chapter will be analysed and assessed. In addition, the project assesses the practice of the national contact points of the OECD Guidelines concerning their use of human rights arguments. Next, the project analyses tortious liability for transnational enterprises on the basis of national law. This includes the development of the jurisprudence under the Alien Tort Statute as well as EU and German law. Finally, the project assesses the implementation of the so called Post-Ruggie process at the national and international level. In particular the German process will be of a specific focus for the project.