منصوره صدیقیان کاشانی

Transnational Corporations (TCs) are one of the principal participants in the political, social and economic contemporary world. These corporations have put out desire and appropriate achievements, as well as harmful disorders in human rights domains. The latter has led to the disputed problematique in international law. Have TCs any human rights obligations? In response to this question, two main approaches have formed: The first is the ethical approach which argues that human rights as a priori fundamental ethical obligations are assignable to all entities including TCs. The second is institutional approach which says human rights are those rights that have listed in Human Rights Declaration and subsequent international instruments and contemplates that states are principal duty bearers towards human rights obligations. According to the recent approach, the lack of direct assignment of human rights obligations to TCs is a more appropriate way to protect these rights. This article examines both approaches as well as attention to the documents of the Human Rights Council which has produced many documents in this respect and concludes although TCs have human rights obligations but still the States are being considered direct duty bearers towards human rights obligations.

Master’s Degree in Public International Law; Qom University Occasional violations of international law occur as the United Nations and its peacekeeping forces carry out their important responsibility and mission for protecting global peace and security. Remedial mechanisms become more complicated when the actions of peacekeeping forces are attributed to the UN as a result of certain principles of international responsibility. On the one hand, the UN’s responsibility toward victims of such violations requires the world body to be answerable while, on the other hand, its immunity to trial in national and transnational courts, has barred victims from taking legal action. Although the UN has taken steps to solve this problem in order to restore the credit it has lost as a result of the actions of its forces as well as its immunity, the proposed mechanisms have posed new challenges, thus, making the UN target of new criticism. Such criticism seems even more justified as a result of the promotion of human rights in international community and alterations in the aforesaid immunity. The present paper discusses the necessity of introducing new mechanisms or reforms by the UN which would make the existing mechanisms more efficient and fairer.

There are two essential issues between peacekeeping and humanitarian law: the first one is the necessity of complying with the humanitarian law rules by peacekeepers. Whereas the UN issues the permission of peacekeeping operations and they are under the UN control, it is important to deal with the necessity of the observation of the rules of the humanitarian law by the UN and subsequently by the peacekeepers. The Second is the necessity of the intervention of peacekeepers in order to prevent violating the rules of humanitarian law. This article, invoking customary and conventional sources of international law, seeks the answer for the above mentioned questions.