Shell/Nigeria: the fight over secondary liability of parent companies over corporate human rights violations by their subsidiaries
By Nicky Touw
Secondary liability of parent companies for actions conducted by their foreign subsidiaries is a highly contentious topic in civil litigation. Where some see it as an inevitable necessity to rebalance inequality in case of corporate human rights violations, others argue that it is an inappropriate, even abusive, means of using the law to file for damages away from the appropriate forum. Judges in Global North countries grapple with this issue in different ways and the cases are being litigated all the way up to the highest national courts. This blog offers a short overview and discussion of the possible impact of a number of landmark decisions in the UK and the Netherlands shedding more light on the parent-subsidiary relationship in the search of accountability for human rights violations committed by, or with the assistance of, businesses. More...