BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS / Šturma, Mozetic (eds)

in November 2013 20 and subsequently adopted by the Committee of Ministers in April 2014. 21 On 12 November 2015, the CDDH-CORP presented its 6th meeting report, 22 informing that it had finalised the second reading of the draft recommendation relating to non-binding instruments on human rights and business. On the basis of this, in March 2016 the Committee of Ministers adopted Recommendation CM/Rec (2016)3 on Human Rights and Business. 23 On 9 June 2017, the Steering Committee for Human Rights held a seminar on the work conducted in 2014–2015 regarding corporate social responsibility in the field of human rights. 24 This is the current situation regarding the debate on business and human rights in the “legislative” and “executive” bodies of the Council of Europe. The practice of the European Court of Human Rights (the Court) is more compelling and requires supplementary discussion. This CoE body has dealt with the corporate human rights abuses in the hundreds of cases when the applicants alleged a breach of Articles 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 14 of the Convention. 25 The present study will focus specifically on the case-law of the Court with respect to Article 8 of the Convention keeping in mind the possible involvement of businesses. It is of interest to note that apart from general Article 1 of the Convention, Article 8 is the only provision of the Convention, which contains in its title the obligation “to respect” human rights precisely as in the Pillar II of the UNGP. Preliminary analysis of the Court’s case-law demonstrates that there exist three main areas which comprise the activities of private business subjects resulting in possible violation of the right to respect for private and family life. They may be summarised as follows: 1) protection of the environment; 2) defamation proceedings; and 3) employment disputes. The next section of this paper deals with examples relating to each of them and will include corresponding comments and explanations. 20 Steering Committee for Human Rights (CDDH), Report, 79th meeting, 26-29 November 2013, CDDH(2013)R79, Strasbourg, 6 December 2013. 21 Declaration of the Committee of Ministers on the UN Guiding Principles on business and human rights, Adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 16 April 2014 at the 1197th meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies. 22 Steering Committee for Human Rights (CDDH), Drafting Group On Human Rights And Business (CDDH-CORP), Meeting report, 6th meeting, 2-4 November 2015, CDDH-CORP(2015)R6, Strasbourg, 12 November 2015. 23 Recommendation CM/Rec(2016)3 of the Committee of Ministers to member States on human rights and business, Adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 2 March 2016 at the 1249th meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies. 24 High-Level Seminar on Human Rights and Business “Promoting the effective implementation of global and regional instruments”, Strasbourg, 9 June 2017, available at: https://www.coe.int/en/web/human-rights- intergovernmental-cooperation/-/high-level-seminar-on-human-rights-and-business (accessed 2 April 2018). 25 TYMOFEYEVA, Alla, Indirect Obligations of Business Entities under the European Convention on Human Rights, Czech Yearbook of Public and Private International Law , 8 (2017), 291-305.

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