The Rome II Regulation and the law applicable to civil liability arising from acts contrary to human rights carried out by companies in their cross–border activities

Abstract

The elaboration of a conflict rule on the non–contractual liability of companies for Human Rights abuses becomes an intrinsic need in the current substantive development that is taking place in Europe at the Institutional and State level. In this paper, we will see that the current rules of tort liability of the Rome II Regulation are difficult to adapt to the needs of this sector and, nevertheless, private international law acquires a fundamental role in guaranteeing effective judicial protection for the victims of abuses and consolidating minimum levels of protection of HR at a global level.
The growing substantive approximation in this area is being promoted by the European Institutions with the Proposal for a European Directive on Due Diligence in Sustainability and Human Rights that augurs a new paradigm of more responsible business behaviour, but in order to achieve new HR protection standards it is necessary to carry out a parallel conflictual harmonization.