Multinational Corporations, Transnational Law: The United Nations' Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations as a Harbinger of Corporate Social Responsility in International Law
![handle is hein.journals/colhr37 and id is 295 raw text is: MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS,
TRANSNATIONAL LAW: THE UNITED
NATIONS' NORMS ON THE
RESPONSIBILITIES OF TRANSNATIONAL
CORPORATIONS AS A HARBINGER OF
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN
INTERNATIONAL LAW
Larry Catd Backer*
This Article considers the ramifications of current efforts to
internationalize the regulation of corporate social responsibility. The
primary focus will be on the United Nations' efforts to regulate
transnational corporations through the development of its Norms
on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other
Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights.1 The Norms are
* Professor of Law, Pennsylvania State University, Dickinson School of
Law. The author can be contacted at lcbll@psu.edu. An earlier version of this
article was presented for the plenary panel on Corporate Social Responsibility:
Reform and Race at the Second National People of Color Legal Scholarship
Conference, George Washington University Law School, Washington, D.C.,
October 7, 2004. Special thanks to my research assistant Michael Davey (Penn
State '05) for his very able work on this project.
1. U.N. Econ. & Soc. Council (ECOSOC), Sub-Comm'n on Promotion &
Prot. of Human Rights, Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational
Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights, U.N.
Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/2003/L.8 (Aug. 7, 2003) (draft resolution prepared by Alfonso
Martinez et al.), available at http://www.unhchr.ch/Huridocda/Huridoca.ns
f/0/6b10e6a7e6f3b747c1256d8100211a60?Opendocument. This document was
subsequently revised. See ECOSOC, Sub-Comm'n on Promotion & Prot. of
Human Rights, Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and
Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights, U.N. Doc.
E/CN.4/Sub.2/2003/12/Rev.2 (Aug. 26, 2003), available at http://www.unhchr.
ch/huridocda/huridoca.nsf/0/64155e7e814b38cc1256d63002c55e8?OpenDocument
[hereinafter Norms]. All references to the Norms are to the revised Norms issued
August 26, 2003. For the official commentary on the Norms, see ECOSOC, Sub-](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/colhr37&div=13&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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