Human rights and arbitration are often cast as opposing juridical worlds. One evokes public values, vulnerable claimants and state power; the other, contractual consent, private adjudication and commercial disputes. But that contrast obscures the question: when business activity causes human rights harm across borders, should effective remedy depend upon the institutional label of the forum? It should not. What matters is whether the mechanism can deliver legitimate, accessible and effective redress.

The European Law Institute's "Business and Human Rights: Access to Justice and Effective Remedies" Report presents a formidable objection. It calls the Bangladesh Accords and the Hague Rules on Business and Human Rights Arbitration "impressive and welcome", while cautioning that consensual mechanisms depend upon party consent and may be vulnerable to stronger parties without external control. It therefore favours public-facing mechanisms possessing coercive authority. That concern is legitimate. Yet it does not establish arbitration's irrelevance.

Indeed, the Report's........

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