L’affaire Mubende-Neumann (Comité des droits de l’homme) : l’obligation de l’État de faire respecter les droits de l’homme est-elle la voie à suivre ?

The purpose of this article is to analyze the 2012 Concluding Observations on Germany of the Human Rights Committee as it pertains to the case Mubende-Neumann. The Observations establish the positive duty of Germany to protect the victims of human rights abuses committed by German multinational enterprises conducting their industrial activities extraterritorially. The decision is substantiated by the notions of positive obligation and extraterritoriality. While the former is already well-known in international law, the latter is quite innovative especially as it pertains to its application to multinational enterprises acting transnationally. This is why we could qualify such a positive duty to protect as being at an “intermediary stage” in terms of its development. While a number of committees have consistently confirmed the existence of such an obligation there has not yet been an individual communication that has specifically dealt with such a positive duty.