New challenges facing states within the field of human rights and business

This article focuses on the state duty to protect human rights and to remedy violations, ie the so-called Pillar 1 and Pillar 3 of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). The state duty consists of a ‘smart mix’ of legally binding obligations and soft law commitments. Taking as its starting point the extensive research undertaken in relation to developing a country visit template for the UN Working Group on human rights and business, this article provides a detailed account of the contents of the state’s regulatory and policy functions to which the UNGPs refer and attempts to untangle extraterritorial issues. The article broaches on points of misperception of the actual human rights obligations at stake and the weakness of international human rights law in this field. It also identifies the important roles and functions of the UN Working Group as well as proposing a number of prospective reflections on recent developments, inter alia, the first steps taken to create legally binding standards, in the field of human rights and business.