A/HRC/34/47 Subtheme 2. Jurisprudential and other approaches to clarify standards of civil, administrative and criminal liability of transnational corporations and other business enterprises 79. The first panellist stated that a binding instrument would not have to specify each individual human rights obligation of corporations, but should provide an analytical framework for how treaty bodies or domestic courts could further develop those obligations in a particular context. The approach of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, which provided for the direct application of constitutional rights obligations on private actors, could be instructive in that regard. 80. The second panellist outlined standards of civil liability for human rights abuses applicable to multinational parent companies in English tort law and their potential implications. The common law requirement of reasonable steps to avoid harm to those to whom a duty of care was owed overlapped largely with the human rights due diligence obligation. Therefore, he suggested a tort law approach for achieving corporate accountability, particularly in respect of parent companies and their potential negligence, but with some modifications to make it more universally applicable. 81. The third panellist noted that the global economy and corporations continued to operate in a system of segregation, racism, exploitation and inequality, in which human rights were violated without any actor being held accountable. Therefore, the philosophies of decolonization, feminism, rights of the child and the elderly, fairness, equality and security should be part of the framework of principles used in the treaty. The panellist identified evidence of corporate civil and criminal liability in domestic and international law, such as in the constitutions of the Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi and South Africa, which provided for the horizontal application of human rights, including with regard to the activities of corporations. Further guidance could be found in the criminal codes of Australia, South Africa and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which included provisions on corporate criminal liabilities, and in the African Union draft protocol on amendments to the Protocol on the Statute of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights. 82. The fourth panellist stressed that any discussion of a treaty should include the issue of its ratification by certain countries, and the ability to effectively enforce any corporate liability under that treaty. The treaty should be focused on clarifying liability standards to judge corporate conduct with respect to human rights. In that connection, he recalled the importance of the application of the standards of knowledge and purpose as components of mens rea in order to determine corporate liability or negligence. 83. The fifth panellist proposed basic principles that should inform the treaty: corporations should be subject to private civil liability as well as to administrative or criminal enforcement sanctions by the State, in the same way as a natural person; certain principles, such as the legal liability of corporations for abuses within their sphere of influence, when they have caused, profited from, contributed to or failed to prevent the harm, were common to all legal systems and therefore should be used in a treaty; victims should have the right to hold transnational corporations liable either in the place where the subsidiaries operated and where the harm occurred, or in other places where the company was present; the treaty should provide for the elimination of the doctrine of forum non conveniens and the concept of the corporate veil in human rights cases; and the treaty should provide for the liberalization of the rule of discovery and the enhancement of international cooperation. The relevant European Union regulations and the United Nations Convention against Corruption were good models for, among other things, the exchange of technical expertise and information among States and the shifting of the burden of proof. 14