The Sovereign Immunity Doctrine and Corporate Human Rights Accountability in Nigeria: Toward a Binding Legal Framework

This doctoral study critically deconstructs the doctrinal barriers that sovereign immunity and corporate legal personality doctrines erect against corporate human rights accountability in Nigeria, proposing a binding national legal framework that closes existing accountability gaps. Transnational corporations operating in Nigeria, particularly in the extractive sector, have benefited from domestic and international legal structures that shield them from accountability for human rights abuses. The research situates its analysis within the evolving international legal landscape, including the proposed UN Binding Treaty on Business and Human Rights, the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, and jurisprudential developments in the UK, Netherlands, and France regarding parent company liability for subsidiary-caused human rights harms. A theoretical-doctrinal methodology is employed, engaging with corporate law, international human rights law, and sovereign immunity doctrine to identify the legal architecture that enables impunity. The research incorporates comparative analysis of existing binding national human rights due diligence legislation in France (Devoir de Vigilance Law 2017), Germany, and Norway, adapting lessons for the Nigerian constitutional and statutory context. An original legal framework is designed, incorporating mandatory human rights due diligence obligations, an extraterritorial jurisdiction clause for Nigerian parent companies, a state-sponsored human rights ombudsman for business, and a mandatory non-judicial grievance mechanism standard. The study makes an original doctrinal contribution by developing the concept of reflexive corporate human rights obligation within the Nigerian constitutional order. Keywords: corporate accountability, sovereign immunity, human rights due diligence, binding treaty, Nigeria.