Between protection and simulacra: How do the transnational corporations defy the limits of the Inter-American Human Rights System

Abstract

This article examines the limits of the Inter-American Human Rights System in addressing socio-environmental violations associated with the conduct of transnational corporations in the Latin American context. Its central aim is to propose the category of transnational co-responsibility between State and corporation stemming from an analytical critique to reveal the hybrid structure through which damage is produced, a structure often encrypted by State-centered international responsibility. The methodology is based on qualitative research, combining critical bibliographical review with case analysis from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights involving socio-environmental violations whose materiality is shaped by corporate conduct. The theoretical framework articulates the Theory of the Encryption of Power, particularly the notions of transcendent model, porous sovereignty, and simulacrum, with the Business and Human Rights agenda. The findings demonstrate that the Inter-American model incorporates corporate activity into the assessment of States conventional obligations, but does so through a contentious grammar that transforms transnational corporate conflicts into State-centered litigation. The investigation concludes that the problem lies not only in the absence of direct jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court over corporations, but also in the encryption produced when State attribution renders partially invisible the private centers of power involved in the violation. It therefore proposes a decrypted reading of responsibility, capable of revealing the co-production of damage by States with weakened sovereignty and materially powerful transnational corporations.