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The claim that corporations have human rights obligations remains contentious and can be fraught with confusion. This article synthesizes existing corporate human rights theory and responds to objections to the idea that transnational corporations (TNCs) have human rights obligations. The argument proceeds in three stages. The first section describes the different forms TNCs take and explains why TNCs are properly understood as moral agents responsible for their policies and practices. The second section reviews and explains different philosophical theories of corporate human rights obligations. The third section articulates and responds to objections to the idea that corporations have human rights obligations. The main conclusion of this article is that there are multiple, compelling and overlapping justifications of corporate human rights obligations.

The Alien Tort Statute (ATS) allows noncitizens to bring civil actions in US federal courts for a select class of particularly egregious violations of international law. Human rights activists have pushed the boundaries of the ATS in recent decades, and the Supreme Court has responded by establishing several limiting rules for ATS jurisdiction. Most recently, in April 2018, the Supreme Court ruled in Jesner v Arab Bank that foreign corporations cannot be defendants in ATS suits. Following Jesner, plaintiffs in ongoing ATS suits have dropped key corporate defendants from their complaints. This Comment argues that courts and litigants should pause to consider how \"foreign corporation\" ought to be defined when applying the Jesner rule to transnational corporations. While a formalistic rule based on place of incorporation or location of headquarters might seem the obvious choice, it is not a necessary one. This Comment considers possible alternatives and concludes that a functional standard that determines a corporation's \"foreignness\" based on its actual ties to the United States best serves the purpose of the ATS as defined by Jesner. To that end, this Comment introduces a standard I call the Functional Foreignness Test, which defines a foreign corporation as a corporation whose ties to the United States are at least as strong as to any other nation. Such a standard ensures that ATS jurisdiction, which can have substantial implications for both foreign relations and human rights, does not turn on a formality that may have little relation to a corporation's actual ties or activities.

The question of whether human rights principles and practices can soften the deleterious effects of capitalism is a long-standing one. Anthropologist Jane Collier (2001) recounts how sociologist Emile Durkheim, growing up in the aftermath of the failed social revolutions of 1848, was concerned with the effects of capitalism on people, which led him to search for a moral discourse that would help mediate the harmful effects of capitalist market relations, where profits were privileged over people. The papers in this section examine whether attempts to regulate global corporations by drawing on human rights laws, norms, and practices succeed in easing the harmful effects of capitalism. Gay W. Seidman is concerned with the nefarious effects on labor standards and workers rights; Chris London is most interested in the effects on -- and our ability to further -- human flourishing. Adapted from the source document.