State obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the context of business activities 2017, para. 43
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Victims of transnational corporate abuses face specific obstacles in accessing effective remedies. In addition to the difficulty of proving the damage or establishing the causal link between the conduct of the defendant corporation located in one jurisdiction and the resulting violation in another, transnational litigation is often prohibitively expensive and time-consuming, and in the absence of strong mechanisms for mutual legal assistance, the collection of evidence and the execution in one State of judgments delivered in another State present specific challenges. In some jurisdictions, the forum non conveniens doctrine, according to which a court may decline to exercise jurisdiction if another forum is available to victims, may in effect constitute a barrier to the ability of victims residing in one State to seek redress before the courts of the State where the defendant business is domiciled. Practice shows that claims are often dismissed under this doctrine in favour of another jurisdiction without necessarily ensuring that victims have access to effective remedies in the alternative jurisdiction.