Business and Human Rights in Times of Global Emergencies: Comparative Perspective

Abstract

This article provides an overview of the key principles of the state's fulfilmentt of the positive obligation to protect human rights from violations by business during the crisis caused by COVID 19: balancing the need to ensure public health and human rights protection; balancing the competing rights of non-state actors with taking into account the concept of the right to security as freedom from fear and freedom from want; implementation of the international human rights law requirement on restriction of human rights, including the derogation from international human rights obligations. The second part of the article is an overview of the results of a survey on the implementation by various countries around the world of the obligation to protect human rights from business violations during COVID 19. The purpose of the survey was to summarize the information about different countries obtained according to the proposed criteria to identify the main regulatory models that states use to fulfil their obligation to protect human rights from business violations in time of COVID 19.