The author presents the constitutional model of State responsibility in Central Europe as exemplified by four legal systems: the Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. In all of them, the legal rule providing for the reparation of damage caused by public authorities takes the shape of a subjective constitutional right which requires implementation in ordinary legislation. The very generous system of the Polish Constitution led to some limitations and qualifications of the broad constitutional right by the case law. In Hungary, a similarly broadly phrased constitutional right coexists with quite restrictive legislative provisions and a case law which tends to go slowly and cautiously beyond the letter of the ordinary legislation. In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the drafters of the Constitutions were much more cautious and the precise content of the constitutional right is specified in ordinary legislation. State responsibility mechanisms at the domestic level have proven quite effective to compensate material damage. The greatest remaining challenge is compensation of moral damage.

Human rights and business have long been perceived as two separate domains, with human rights considered to be a shield and protection against the abuse of governmental power. It has only been more recently that private actors such as corporations have come onto the radar of human rights scholars, while those concerned with corporations and corporate responsibility have hardly adopted a human rights perspective. Hence, bringing business and human rights together has not been intuitive for either human rights scholars or corporate responsibility researchers. Accordingly, learning “business and human rights” (BHR) actually means unlearning both business and human rights, at least to some degree. A certain taken-for-grantedness of “business as usual” often provides fertile ground for corporate human rights violations and the inadequacies of the current international legal system that provides the shield for their impunity.

Corporations can be implicated in human rights violations in direct and indirect ways: Direct violations are caused by corporations through their own activities; indirect violations are caused by third parties and corporations contribute indirectly. This chapter looks in detail at this important distinction between direct and indirect human rights violations. It presents a common typology of different kinds of complicity, ranging from direct to indirect, beneficial and silent complicity. It then contrasts some legal and non-legal implications deriving from these. Before doing so, some critical reflection on terminology is provided, particularly as it pertains to the notions of human rights impacts and human rights violations.