EUROPEAN CASES DATABASE

European legal systems are not equipped to deal with human rights violations caused by transnational corporations. It is therefore very difficult to seek legal redress, whether in civil or criminal proceedings. Legal norms and standards are insufficiently applied to TNCs by courts and law enforcement agencies in European countries; their legal systems are failing to address the reality of globalised economic structures. This conclusion follows the analysis of 69 court cases across Europe involving alleged human rights violations by transnational corporations under the direction of Denise Bentele of ECCHR. The 69 lawsuits contained in ECCHR’s European Cases Database’ stem from 46 separate cases. The methodology employed by ECCHR allowed comparative analysis of these cases, despite the jurisdictional and procedural differences among European legal systems.

Prerequisite for the successful use of legal instruments against transnational corporation and board members responsible for human rights violations is both a careful analysis of the legal situation in the affected jurisdictions and a systematic analysis of previous legal practice. Up to now, there were no attempts on the European level to systematically record and evaluate proceedings concerned with human rights violations of corporations with headquarters in Europe. Some databases record proceedings across Europe, but these databases neither record all proceedings, nor do they provide an analysis of the proceedings.

The present study of ECCHR aims to remedy these inadequacies. However, the intention is not to permanently maintain and update this database, but rather to review and analyze previous legal work, with hopes to learn lessons for future cases.

The database is available on request (info@ecchr.eu).