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freedom from state interference in their personal affairs and enjoyment of property. Thus,natural rights theory on state responsibility of human rights has been interwoven intointernational human rights doctrine; examples include the English Bill of Rights (1689), theAmerican Declaration of Independence (1776), the French Declaration of the Rights of Manand the Citizen (1789), the first 10 amendments to the Constitution of the US (known as theBill of Rights, 1791).2.5.2 Protection from state abusesIn essence, the principles of natural rights noted above have penetrated human rightsdoctrine as a means of ensuring that individual rights and dignity are supported by thebuilding of powerful defences around the private individual from state intervention.However, the natural rights doctrine is limited in so far that states and state agents arethe primary focus of all international human rights law. Accordingly, violations by modernday non-state actors such as MNCs are virtually ignored. In this approach, the natural lawconception of human rights operated to shield non-state actors from liability for egregiousviolations of human rights.A major failing of natural rights theory, according to academics, is its inability to forgo theproposition that rights are inextricably linked to the protection of a natural person from asovereign. 222 The international human rights, according to the modern social democraticapproach, have evolved into a macro perspective, premised on the idea that natural personsare vulnerable in the ‘social world’; meaning that individuals require protection from the“social context in which they find themselves” whether or not it is state controlled. Therefore,this theory suggests that the ability to enjoy human rights is not solely dependant on theconscious actions of the state, but is also vulnerable to systemic discrimination or structuralfeatures of social processes.This paradigm shift from the notion that human rights is based on social realities, ratherthan originating from the concept that human rights only applies to protection for theindividual from the state, provides greater flexibility to the international community inrecognising that human rights obligations may also apply also to non-state actors andprivate individuals. Thus, the social democratic approach makes sense today since states areno longer considered to be the sole threat to human rights. Globalisation and the risingpower of non-state actors have introduced a shift in influence and, arguably a new sourceof control over the lives of many private individuals by widening the disparity betweenrich and poor, and the haves and have-nots. To prioritise circumscription of state powerand leave the individual defenceless to the vicious non-state actor would render the veryconcept of human rights superfluous and virtually nugatory.50|Private Sector Accountability in Combating the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children