Extending human rights accountability for corporate actors in the LIDHO v Cote d’Ivoire case of the African Court
Written by Solomon Dersso and Elsabé Boshoff
In September 2023 the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACtHPR or African Court) handed down its first judgement for harm caused, including to the environment, due to the dumping of toxic waste. the African jurisprudence on the question of corporate accountability for infringement of human rights.
In the context of the major shift in power dynamics in the world in recent times, where corporations have become economically, socially and politically more powerful and influential than states, one of the most pressing issues confronting the human rights regime is the extent to which it can hold non-state actors accountable for human rights violations. Due to the increase in the scale of infringement, curtailment and undermining of human rights by activities of corporations, particularly multinational corporations and especially in linkedin database developing countries, there have been increased calls both from scholars and human rights bodies for holding corporations accountable.
Despite continuing contestation over the scope and nature of such accountability, the need for corporate accountability was universally acknowledged with the adoption in 2011 of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). Effort for establishing a globally binding accountability regime is however still underway through the development of a Draft Binding Instrument on Business and Human Rights, a process that faces enormous resistance from Global North countries and big business.
A defining feature of the conduct of multinational corporations in Africa is that they operate in a human rights vacuum, as established in the work of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR or African Commission), mainly through its Working Group on Extractive Industries, Environment and Human Rights. The finding by the African Court of a violation of human rights to life, effective remedy, health, a satisfactory environment and the right to information due to toxic waste dumping by a multinational company TRAFIGURA Limited on the coast of Côte d’Ivoire, buttresses this point. The decision of the African Court in Ligue Ivoirienne des Droits de l’Homme (LIDHO) And Others v. Republic of Côte d’Ivoire (the LIDHO case) builds on the UNGPs and reinforces the extensive work by the ACHPR on corporate accountability for human rights.