Published by De Gruyter

Volume 2 Issue 3

Issue of Journal of European Tort Law

Contents
Journal Overview

November 8, 2011

Tort Law and Human Rights: Brothers in Arms On the Role of Tort Law in the Area of Business and Human Rights

Cees van Dam

Page range: 221-254

Abstract

Over the past decades, transnational corporations (TNCs) have come under increasing public scrutiny for their involvement in human rights violations, particularly in developing countries. One may think of child and slave labour in the supply chain, cooperation with violent or corrupt regimes, and grand scale environmental pollution. Legal protection for victims of human rights violations against TNCs is poor. Public international law protects the freedom of trade but does not regulate the way companies use this freedom. Moreover, it is disputed whether international human rights law can impose obligations on companies. This has triggered the question what role national tort laws can play to fill this protection gap. This article first paints the factual background and the lack of international rules protecting victims of human rights violations (Section I). Section II lists the practical and legal problems victims face if they want to hold a TNC to account (such as fact-finding, forum, and applicable law). Section III provides an overview of tort law claims filed against TNCs in the United States and Europe. Finally, Section IV analyses the standard of care in tort law for a TNC to prevent its involvement in human rights violations, particularly through its subsidiaries and suppliers.

November 8, 2011

The Criticism of Trading Corporations and their Right to Sue for Defamation

Jan Oster

Page range: 255-279

Abstract

The article examines reputation and defamation of corporate claimants under English and German law and the law of the ECHR. It elaborates on the premise that the presumption of English case law, according to which a trading corporation is in the same position as an individual with regard to a defamation claim, needs refinement and reconsideration. In contrast to individuals, the reputation of a company results exclusively from the conception of reputation as property. As a consequence, the constitutional basis of a company's reputation is article 1(1) of the First Protocol to the ECHR, and not article 8(1) ECHR. Trading corporations are public figures, and therefore speech about them is per se public speech, enjoying considerable freedom of speech protection that has to be balanced against the company's property right on a case-by-case basis.

November 8, 2011

Punitive Damages in Estonian Tort Law?

Janno Lahe

Page range: 280-293

November 8, 2011

Sienkiewicz v Greif and Exceptional Doctrines of Natural Causation

Sandy Steel

Page range: 294-311

November 8, 2011

Is a Dike which Lets Water Through it a Defective Dike?

F. T. Oldenhuis

Page range: 312-326

November 8, 2011

Thierry Vansweevelt and Britt Weyts, Handboek Buitencontractueel Aansprakelijkheidsrecht (Intersentia, 2009)

Willem H. van Boom

Page range: 327-329

November 8, 2011

Charles Mitchell and Paul Mitchell (eds), Landmark Cases in the Law of Tort (Hart Publishing, 2010)

Jörg Fedtke

Page range: 330-332

November 8, 2011

Gert Brüggemeier/Aurelia Colombi Ciacchi/Patrick O'Callaghan (eds), Personality Rights in European Tort Law (CUP, 2010)

Alastair Mullis

Page range: 333-335

November 8, 2011

Helmut Koziol, Grundfragen des Schadenersatzrechts (Jan Sramek Verlag, 2010)

Gerhard Wagner

Page range: 336-340

About this journal

The Journal of European Tort Law (JETL) is the first law review to be dedicated to this important and dynamic area of European private law. It aims to contribute to the analysis and development of tort law in Europe by the publication of scholarly articles, comments and reviews. It has a primarily comparative focus, but willingly embraces all scholarly perspectives, including economic analysis of law and legal sociology. Its subject matter extends beyond substantive tort law to the wider tort system, including private and social insurance.

JETL is the journal of the European Centre of Tort and Insurance Law (ECTIL) and the Institute for European Tort Law of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Both are amongst the most prestigious institutions in the field of comparative Tort Law worldwide.