Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions and Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions 44. Subordinate to the State’s binding obligation to protect and enforce, the Guiding Principles therefore entail a ‘moral responsibility and societal expectation’129 that corporations respect human rights ‘understood, at a minimum, as those expressed in the International Bill of Human Rights and the principles concerning fundamental rights set out in the International Labour Organization’s Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work’130. At an operational level, the corporate responsibility to respect translates in the duty of human rights due diligence, which requires corporations ‘to identify, prevent, mitigate and account for how they address their adverse human rights impacts’.131 The Special Representative clarified that corporate human rights violations can result from ‘environmental impacts—for example, related to water and health’, including such impacts that have a ‘delayed effect’.132 In this connection, corporations should rely on ‘established and quite precise international as well as national standards’ in undertaking due diligence in relation to these environmental impacts.133 45. The question arises whether, alongside this soft law obligation to respect and the extant binding domestic law provisions,134 corporations incur direct obligations under international human rights law and related regimes. A solid body of scholarly works engages with these aspects.135 Andrew Clapham has pioneered the capacity approach which extracts the capacity of non-state actors to carry binding obligations from treaty and customary international law, international jurisprudence and the interpretative work of UN human rights bodies.136 46. By applying Clapham’s method, we identify treaties in the field of environmental law, energy law, space law, and the law of the sea that stipulate direct international obligations for corporations137 – these provisions reveal prima facie that it is not at all legally impossible for corporations to acquire obligations under international treaty law and to incur responsibility for violations of these obligations. Indeed, the Malabo Protocol provides the (not yet established) African Court of Justice and Human Rights with the jurisdiction to hear cases involving international crimes committed by corporations.138 Even though they do not expressly stipulate corporate obligations, newer human rights treaties entail provisions that explicitly mention ‘private entities’ and the state duty to protect from abuse by such entities.139 This method again ties into the dual requirement of the current business and human rights regime, with corporations acknowledging their obligations and states ensuring compliance.140 47. Recent interpretative work of treaty bodies and international jurisprudence provide strong indications that the corporate responsibility to respect human rights has gained traction as a binding obligation. In its General Comment No. 16 of 2013, the Committee on the Rights of the Child addresses corporate bodies directly, seemingly as duty-bearers under the Convention on the Rights of the Child: At this juncture, there is no international legally binding instrument on the business sector’s responsibilities vis-à-vis human rights. However, the Committee recognizes that duties and responsibilities to respect the rights of children extend in practice beyond the State and State-controlled services and institutions and apply to private actors and business enterprises. Therefore, all businesses must meet their responsibilities regarding children’s rights and States must ensure they do so. In addition, business enterprises should not undermine the States’ ability to meet their obligations towards children under the Convention and the Optional Protocols thereto.141 48. The 2016 arbitral award in Urbaser v Argentina is particularly relevant in this connection.142 The Tribunal held: On a preliminary level, the Tribunal is reluctant to share Claimants’ principled position that guaranteeing the human right to water is a duty that may be born solely by the State, and never borne also by private companies like the Claimants. When extended to human rights in general, this would mean that private parties have no commitment or obligation for compliance in relation to human rights, which are on the States’ charge exclusively.143 16