The business operations of companies can have serious and adverse impacts on the community and society including, but not limited to, physical injuries, environmental damage, destruction to livelihoods and infringements on human rights.1 When companies impose externalities on societies, two major consequences arise. The first concerns whether and how the victims of the wrongdoing can bring a claim against the defendant, and the second relates to whether the delinquent company as well as its directors and officers have breached their duties under public interest legislations.

This chapter lays out the cornerstones of polycentric governance in business and human rights, including the attribution and distribution of obligations and the attribution and distribution of responsibility. The chapter distinguishes primary norms relating to duty-bearing (obligations) from secondary norms (responsibility for business-related wrongdoing). The chapter contains a forward-looking proposal (de lege ferenda) to form the basis of the normative building blocks of a polycentric governance model for responsibility resulting from business-related wrongdoings.