Multinational food corporations and the right to health: Achieving accountability through mandatory human rights due diligence?

This chapter considers the responsibility of multinational food corporations (MFCs) for respecting the right to health. MFCs are not legally obliged to promote human rights, however the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights require MFCs to conduct human rights due diligence to reduce the risks that their business practices pose to the enjoyment of human rights. This chapter argues that MFCs have a responsibility to engage in right to health due diligence, to address the ways in which their business practices contribute to the creation of obesogenic environments, which undermine the child’s right to health in particular. The chapter will also argue that if MFCs are unable or unwilling to voluntarily conduct right to health due diligence, states are able to impose obligations to do so – furthermore, the horizontal effects of the right to health might even provide grounding for courts to mandate such state regulation.