International Responsibility of the State in the Inter-American Human Rights System for Violations Committed by State-Owned Enterprises

International Human Rights Law remains predominant-ly structured around a state-centered paradigm, under which responsibility for violations before international courts is, as a rule, attributed exclusively to States. Against this background, the article addresses the following re-search question: is there normative and interpretative space, within the Inter-American Human Rights System, to contemplate the direct international responsibility of state-owned enterprises as a complementary solution to the attribution of responsibility to the State? The article aims to examine the legal criteria governing the attribu-tion of international responsibility to States for acts and omissions of state-owned enterprises, in light of general international law and the case law of regional human rights protection systems, as well as to assess the limits and possibilities of a more direct form of responsibility for such entities within the Inter-American system, using the Brazilian legal framework as an analytical reference. To this end, the article delineates the global normative framework on business and human rights, reconstructs the theory of attribution of international responsibility to States, and conducts a comparative analysis of the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights and the decision-making practice of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. It concludes that, although state attribution remains legally necessary to prevent zones of irresponsibility, it is not always sufficient, as it may reduce the institutional visibility of state-owned enterprises and weaken internal incentives for prevention, governance, and accountability. Accordingly, the article argues that, in cases involving state-owned enterprises, there are grounds to support the admission of direct international responsibility, guided by the pro persona principle, as a means of enhancing the effectiveness of conventional human rights protection.