SOEs have had a significant and long-lasting influence upon the development of international law and international law currently plays a key role in the shaping of SOEs as participants on the international plane. The current period of revival in State corporate ownership has brought with it a new set of challenges which go beyond some of the classic concerns associated with SOEs. The firmly entrenched duty of States to ‘respect, protect and fulfill’ human rights and the special link that exists between States and their SOEs supports a conclusion that State corporate ownership could have an important regulatory function in a human rights context. From this vantage point, international law has a key role to play in the shaping of SOEs as actors on the international plane and various types of instruments have been created to address the human rights challenges associated with State corporate ownership. In this complex and dynamic regulatory framework, the interplay between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ instruments and between the various levels of regulation has a continuous influence on State practice, which could ultimately lead to the development of customary norms in this area.