Holding Multinational Corporations Accountable for Breaches of Human Rights

SummaryNowadays, an important role in the world is played by Multinational Corporations (MNCs). They hire, produce, and influence the international economy, but also, they exploit, pollute. Their business activities might have a worldwide effect on human lives. The question of the responsibility of MNCs has drawn the attention of many scholars, mainly from the study field labelled “Business and Human Rights”. The present paper does not examine the topic under the same approach. The authors aim at presenting the issue in a broader perspective, exploring the concept of due diligence both in international and corporate law. In this paper, authors strategically use the uniformity of national legislations as a possible and alternative solution to the issue. They are aware of three fundamental factors: 1) the definition of MNCs needs to be as clear as possible, so to avoid any degree of uncertainty; 2) the outsourcing phenomenon interacts with that definition; 3) in case of no possibility to include outsourcing in the definition of MNC, the original question arises in a significant way.

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Human Rights and International Political Economy in Third World Nations: Multinational Corporations, Foreign Aid, and Repression. By William H. Meyer Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998. 240p. $65.00 cloth, $22.95 paper.

American Political Science Review ◽

10.2307/2585654 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 93 (3) ◽

pp. 761-762

Author(s):

Sigrun I. Skogly

Keyword(s):

Political Economy ◽

Human Rights ◽

Foreign Aid ◽

Multinational Corporations ◽

Third World ◽

International Political Economy

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Multinational corporations and human rights violations

Journal of Financial Crime ◽

10.1108/jfc-02-2013-0006 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 20 (4) ◽

pp. 422-432 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Barcelona Panda

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Multinational Corporations ◽

Human Rights Violations

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A Legal Response to the Human Rights Violations by the Myanmar’s Dictatorship Associated with the Korean Multinational Corporations

Sogang Law Journal ◽

10.35505/slj.2021.10.10.3.35 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (3) ◽

pp. 35-76

Author(s):

Sukmin Yoon

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Multinational Corporations ◽

Human Rights Violations ◽

Legal Response

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NGO Strategies for Promoting Corporate Social Responsibility

Ethics & International Affairs ◽

10.1111/j.1747-7093.2002.tb00376.x ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 16 (1) ◽

pp. 71-87 ◽

Cited By ~ 65

Author(s):

Morton Winston

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Multinational Corporations ◽

Codes Of Conduct ◽

Legal Standards ◽

Voluntary Codes Of Conduct ◽

Financial Interests ◽

Corporate Social Accountability ◽

Naming And Shaming ◽

Corporate Social ◽

National Governments

This article describes and evaluates the different strategies that have been employed by international human rights nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in attempting to influence the behavior of multinational corporations (MNCs). Within the NGO world, there is a basic divide on tactics for dealing with corporations: Engagers try to draw corporations into dialogue in order to persuade them by means of ethical and prudential arguments to adopt voluntary codes of conduct, while confronters believe that corporations will act only when their financial interests are threatened, and therefore take a more adversarial stance toward them. Confrontational NGOs tend to employ moral stigmatization, or “naming and shaming,” as their primary tactic, while NGOs that favor engagement offer dialogue and limited forms of cooperation with willing MNCs.The article explains the evolving relationship between NGOs and MNCs in relation to human rights issues and defines eight strategies along the engagement/confrontation spectrum used by NGOs in their dealings with MNCs. The potential benefits and risks of various forms of engagement between NGOs and MNCs are analyzed and it is argued that the dynamic created by NGOs pursuing these different strategies can be productive in moving some companies to embrace their social responsibilities. Yet, in order for these changes to be sustainable, national governments will need to enact enforceable international legal standards for corporate social accountability.

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Francophonie and Zionism: A Comparative Study in Transnationalism and Trans-statism

Diaspora A Journal of Transnational Studies ◽

10.3138/diaspora.7.2.119 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 7 (2) ◽

pp. 119-148

Author(s):

William F.S. Miles ◽

Gabriel Sheffer

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Comparative Study ◽

Multinational Corporations ◽

Rapid Growth ◽

International Level ◽

Amnesty International ◽

Transnational Organizations ◽

Governmental Organizations ◽

Non Governmental Organizations ◽

The 1950S

For about four decades now, practitioners and scholars have been examining transnational organizations, the networks that they create, their varied activities, and the economic and political ramifications of these activities. Initially these observers mainly focused on the multinational corporations (MNCs) that gained considerable visibility and, one may say, disrepute in the 1950s and 1960s. Then, as these MNCs and inter-governmental organizations (IGOs) proliferated, investigators widened the scope of their examination to analyze such organizations’ growing variety (see, for example, Keohane and Nye; Said and Simmons; Jenkins). Later observers studied the emergence and rapid growth of non-governmental organizations (NGOs)—such as Greenpeace, Amnesty International, and various religious cults, including the admirers of the Maharishi, the Moonies, and Scientology—that have been active on the international level in such diverse spheres as ecology, human rights, and religion (Galtung; Mansbach, Ferguson, and Lampert; Modelski).

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