Overcoming the Corporate Veil Challenge: Could Investment Law Inspire the Proposed Business and Human Rights Treaty?

This article proposes a model of treaty-based veil piercing for civil liability claims by victims of human rights harm inflicted by businesses. The primary inspiration for this model comes from investment treaty provisions dealing with corporate investors. Our examination of investment law for this purpose exposes the double standard in the treatment of the corporate veil between these two remedy regimes,andoffersawaytoaddressthis.Thetestweproposeforliftingthe veil in order to allow victims to claim against the parent company in a corporate group is one of ‘legal control’. It aims to capture cases where the parent did not necessarily take an active role in the subsidiary’s business, but it is still treated as being in control of it by virtue of its direct or indirect ownership or ability to appoint management

Justice bubbles for the privileged: A critique of the Investor-State Dispute Settlement Proposals for the EU's Investment Agreements

This article criticises the judicialisation of investor state dispute settlement in the direction envisaged by the EU’s Investment Court System because it prioritises institutions of justice for foreign investors over the improvement of local institutions that could provide justice for members across society, including foreign investors

Human Rights Disclosure and Due Diligence Laws: The Role of Regulatory Oversight in Ensuring Corporate Accountability

In response to intense civil society pressure and the increasing public awareness of the appalling human rights impacts of businesses including working conditions amounting to slavery and forced labor, several governments have committed themselves to taking action to prevent human rights abuses by businesses and eradicate modern slavery in global supply chains. While the majority of the legislative movement in this area is focused on increasing transparency through corporate disclosures on human rights, we are also seeing a gradual move towards legislation introducing mandatory human rights due diligence (HRDD). HRDD laws can clearly address some of the design shortcomings of transparency focused laws. Yet, the question of robust implementation remains underexplored for both transparency and HRDD laws. In this paper, we focus on the oversight and enforcement features of both human rights reporting and due diligence laws as among the missing links to achieving the accountability objectives envisaged by such legislation. Based on an analysis of the most recent pieces of legislation focusing on transparency and/or HRDD, we observe and critique that the state has almost completely withdrawn itself from the oversight and enforcement roles and assigned these crucial accountability functions solely to consumers, civil society, and investors. Without a regulatory mechanism to ensure quality of human rights disclosures and due diligence processes and impose sanctions for failing to comply with the laws, not only may the disclosures and processes be inadequate, but there is a danger that misleading disclosures and flawed processes may mask harmful impacts and be detrimental to any hopes of improving rights of workers and communities in the global supply chain. We offer a new perspective on a more effective approach to oversight and enforcement in which the state should function as a key actor through which consumers, civil society, and investors can hold businesses accountable

A user-centric system architecture for residential energy consumption reduction

Long-term energy consumption reduction can be achieved more readily through sensible cooperation between end users and technological advancements. The DANCER project presented here proposes a user-centric residential energy management system, with the intention to achieve long-term energy related behavioural changes, thus improving the energy efficiency of modern homes. Although, it follows the same basic principles as other contemporary approaches, it focuses on minimizing the interaction of the user with the system. This is achieved through an improved feedback mechanism and a generic, policy based service that takes advantage of the modularity and generality of the software architecture. The proposed system is designed to support a variety of technologies (WiFi, Zigbee, X10), in order to ameliorate the input and output of the decision making operation. In this paper, the general outline of the DANCER system architecture and its most important components are discussed and the prototype test-bed is presented. Special consideration is given to the implementation, operation and response behaviour of the prototype

Mosaic Deletions of Known Genes Explain Skeletal Dysplasias With High and Low Bone Mass

Mosaicism, a state in which an individual has two or more genetically distinct populations of cells in the body, can be difficult to detect because of either mild or atypical clinical presentation and limitations in the commonly used detection methods. Knowledge of the role of mosaicism is limited in many skeletal disorders, including osteopathia striata with cranial sclerosis (OSCS) and cleidocranial dysplasia (CCD). We used whole-genome sequencing (WGS) with coverage >40x to identify the genetic causes of disease in two clinically diagnosed patients. In a female patient with OSCS, we identified a mosaic 7-nucleotide frameshift deletion in exon 2 of AMER1, NM_152424.4:c.855_861del:p.(His285Glnfs*7), affecting 8.3% of the WGS reads. In a male patient with CCD, approximately 34% of the WGS reads harbored a 3710-basepair mosaic deletion, NC_000006.11:g.45514471_45518181del, starting in intron 8 of RUNX2 and terminating in the 3 ' untranslated region. Droplet digital polymerase chain reaction was used to validate these deletions and quantify the absolute level of mosaicism in each patient. Although constitutional variants in AMER1 and RUNX2 are a known cause of OSCS and CCD, respectively, the mosaic changes here reported have not been described previously. Our study indicates that mosaicism should be considered in unsolved cases of skeletal dysplasia and should be investigated with comprehensive and sensitive detection methods. (c) 2022 The Authors. JBMR Plus published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.Peer reviewe

Microcirculation and Macrocirculation in Cardiac Surgical Patients

Background. The aim of our study was to investigate the relationship between microcirculatory alterations after open cardiac surgery, macrohemodynamics, and global indices of organ perfusion. Methods. Patients' microcirculation was assessed with near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and the vascular occlusion technique (VOT). Results. 23 patients undergoing open cardiac surgery (11 male/12 female, median age 68 (range 28–82) years, EuroSCORE 6 (1–12)) were enrolled in the study. For pooled data, CI correlated with the tissue oxygen consumption rate as well as the reperfusion rate (r = 0.56, P < 0.001 and r = 0.58, P < 0.001, resp.). In addition, both total oxygen delivery (DO2, mL/min per m2) and total oxygen consumption (VO2, mL/min per m2) also correlated with the tissue oxygen consumption rate and the reperfusion rate. The tissue oxygen saturation of the thenar postoperatively correlated with the peak lactate levels during the six hour monitoring period (r = 0.50, P < 0.05). The tissue oxygen consumption rate (%/min) and the reperfusion rate (%/min), as derived from the VOT, were higher in survivors compared to nonsurvivors for pooled data [23 (4–54) versus 20 (8–38) P < 0.05] and [424 (27–1215) versus 197 (57–632) P < 0.01], respectively. Conclusion. Microcirculatory alterations after open cardiac surgery are related to macrohemodynamics and global indices of organ perfusion

Supply chain liability: pushing the boundaries of the common law?

On 29 August 2016, in a claim by Pakistani survivors and legal heirs against German retailer KiK for injuries and deaths during a fire at a factory supplying jeans in Karachi, German judges accepted jurisdiction and granted legal aid to the Pakistani claimants to cover the legal fees. The case pending before the German court thus poses the question of supply chain liability. Taking the lawsuit by the Pakistani plaintiffs against KiK in Germany as a case study, this article provides an analysis of the available legal grounds for such liability. Economic changes have ushered in linkages between purchasers and suppliers that call for strong principles of liability – principles that are already embedded in the law but which need fresh articulation and application. English courts have only recently recognised that under certain circumstances, liability might attach to a parent company under the tort of negligence for damage to third parties ostensibly caused by its subsidiary. The KiK case is testing the extension of such liability to certain supply chain relationships. Beyond that, the case is also testing the application of the rules on non-delegable duties and vicarious liability in the supply chain context. Even if the court disagrees with the claimants’ position, the novel arguments advanced in this case are likely to be the starting point for an important debate about the proper fit between traditional tort law and the fast changing commercial and employment relationships of the 21st century