In this regard the Court could also have relied on the soft law developments by the ACHPR in its State Reporting Guidelines on Articles 21 and 24, which link corporate responsibilities with the individual duties under Article 27 of the African Charter, thereby recognising the higher standards of corporate accountability in the African human rights system based on binding individual duties, as compared with the UNGPs, which set non-binding standards.
Also in relation to the responsibility of the state to hold the corporation accountable, could the Court have done more to elaborate on state obligations to protect. The Court could have relied on Article 18 of the Algiers Convention which provides for an obligation on states to “take all appropriate measures to prevent, mitigate and eliminate to the maximum extent possible, detrimental effects on the environment, in particular from radioactive, toxic, and other hazardous substances and wastes”, which places a linkedin database very high obligation on states, also for preventing pollution by non-state actors and holding them accountable. The Court could have made use of the strong provisions of this article and Article 16 on procedural human rights to strengthen the conclusions on both state and corporate accountability for the violations committed.
Possible future direction and implications of LIDHO for further development on corporate accountability under the African human rights system
, although it did not go far enough, has opened the door for holding corporations accountable for their actions that curtail or infringe human rights. The majority established an indirect responsibility, whose enforcement depends on the establishment of legislative and institutional arrangements by the state for ensuring compliance by businesses to certain standards as elaborated in the reparations order. The dissenting opinion signifies the direction that the development and expansion of this jurisprudence could take particularly in establishing direct obligation and hence direct accountability of corporations, particularly multinational ones. This of necessity requires that the Court draws more from the soft law instruments of the African Commission, which offer a useful foundation for establishing direct obligations of corporations without disregarding the obligations of the state.