A/HRC/42/41 Principle 14 – Depriving workers of their right to safe and healthy work should be a crime. Commentary 89. Acts or omissions that result in the exposure of workers to toxic substances can be a crime in certain circumstances. While there is a diversity of approaches to the application of criminal sanctions, numerous States have for decades allowed and imposed criminal liability on corporations and/or individuals regarding the exposure of workers to toxic substances. 78 However, criminal liability should not be the primary or only means of enforcement or access to an effective remedy for the abuse of worker’s rights by business entities and/or individuals. 90. Criminal sanctions can be appropriate where business activities result in abuses of the human rights of workers or where a failure to act with due diligence to mitigate risks allows such infringements to occur.79 Criminal liability can serve an important function in public protection via deterrence and enforcement, in addition to helping to advance accountability, access to an effective remedy and the fight against impunity. 80 91. States should ensure that criminal sanctions are available for business entities and/or individuals regarding abuses of workers’ rights arising from toxic exposures. 81 States should investigate and prosecute such cases, ensuring that heads of business enterprises bear responsibility along with other actors, as appropriate. Principle 15 – States should ensure accountability for cross-border cases of workers harmed by occupational exposure. Commentary 92. Accountability and redress mechanisms must be designed to fit the realities of the modern global economy and its cross-border consumption, production, trade, disposal and investment patterns and the resultant transboundary risks of toxic exposure by workers. International supply chains, transnational business enterprises and various partnerships involving States and foreign investors have expanded and increased. Often, this takes place in countries before adequate governance structures and capacity to sufficiently protect workers from abuses arising from toxic exposures is developed. 93. Just as duties and responsibilities to protect and respect extend across borders (principle 5), so too should accountability. Victims of abuse of their rights in transnational activities and business relationships face specific obstacles in accessing effective remedies for occupational exposure to toxic substances. For various reasons, remedies available to victims before the domestic courts of the State where the harm occurs may be unavailable or ineffective. Challenges include proving damages and establishing causal links, as well as the financial costs of access to remedy in most jurisdictions, limited technical capacity and the lack of independence of some judicial systems. 94. States have an obligation to take steps to redress infringements of workers’ rights due to toxic exposures that occur outside their territories or jurisdiction resulting from the activities of actors over which they can exercise control. 82 These actors include various 78 79 80 81 82 Felice Morgenstern, “Civil and criminal liability in relation to occupational safety and health”, in ILO, Encyclopaedia of Occupational Health and Safety. Available at www.iloencyclopaedia.org/partiii/resources-institutional-structural-and-legal/item/215-civil-and-criminal-liability-in-relation-tooccupational-safety-and-health. For example, in Italy, in the 1977 case concerning the use of benzene in a dye factory, the general manager, the technical manager and the works physician, as well as the owners and the managing director, were found guilty of involuntary homicide. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 24, para. 15. A/72/162, para. 52 (citing A/HRC/35/33 and www.commercecrimehumanrights.org/wpcontent/uploads/2016/10/CCHR-0929-Final.pdf.). Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 24, para. 49. Ibid., para. 30. 19