BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS / Šturma, Mozetic (eds)

legal persons for offences such as sale of children, sexual exploitation of children, and transfer of children organs for profit or engagement of children in forced labour. The International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (ICMW) refers to employers of migrant workers in article 43 paragraph 3. The oldest treaty, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) mentions groups and organizations, which can comprise business entities. Its article 2 paragraph (d) requires prohibition and bringing to an end racial discrimination by any persons, group or organization. Despite omissions and rather limited references to private enterprises in the human rights treaties, the treaty bodies have addressed State parties’ obligation to protect treaty rights from a harmful effect of business activities in their concluding observations, jurisprudence and general comments. Two treaty bodies, namely the Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights adopted specific general comments on this issue. 9 Enterprises in the concluding observations Unlike decisions in individual cases, recommendations in the concluding observations of treaty bodies provide general guidance, address key concerns of compliance with the respective treaty and touch upon more systemic issues of legislation, policy, institutions and practice in treaty implementation. Regarding the business sector, the Governments have been requested to adopt, review or implement legislative, administrative, judicial, policy and other measures to ensure that the relevant treaty rights are not harmfully impacted by the business operations. The Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC Committee) and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural rights (CESCR Committee) seem to have addressed the impact of business activities on the respective treaty rights more frequently comparing to other treaty bodies. The recommendations of CRC Committee concerning the business sector has related to both the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. The Committee has often referred to its own General Comment No. 16 10 and to the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. 11 The most frequent recommendations of the CRC Committee related to the establishment of the legal or regulatory framework and adoption of legislation; 9 General comment No. 16 (2013) on State obligations regarding the impact of the business sector on children’s rights, CRC/C/GC/16, 17 April 2013 and General comment No. 24 (2017) on State obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the context of business activities, E/C.12/GC/24, 10 August 2017. 10 Ibid. 11 The Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy’ Framework, endorsed by the Human Rights Council in its resolution 17/4 of 16 June 2011.

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