Human Rights Violations by Multinational Corporations and International Law: Where from Here?
![handle is hein.journals/conjil19 and id is 9 raw text is: HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS BY
MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS AND
INTERNATIONAL LAW: WHERE FROM HERE?
Surya Deva*
I. INTRODUCTION
The conventional international framework for protection of human rights is
state-centric; it obligates primarily states to promote, and not violate, human rights.
However, the advent of national and transnational private actors,' especially
multinational corporations (MNCs),2 in public services has posed serious
challenges to this model. States no longer enjoy the monopoly as violators of
human rights and no longer solely bear the duty to protect human rights. The
international community3 is realizing that in order to achieve fuller and wider
realization of human rights, the umbrella of human rights obligations and their
enforcement should cover MNCs.' But since the existing international mechanism
was not designed to apply to MNCs, its inadequacy is exposed. Such inadequacy
* Ph.D. Scholar, Faculty of Law, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia. Formerly,
Assistant Professor, National Law Institute University, Bhopal, India; Lecturer, Faculty of Law,
University of Delhi, Delhi, India. I am grateful to Rosemary Lyster, Fleur Johns, and Swati Deva for
their insightful comments on an earlier draft of this article. I am also thankful to the members of the
Editorial Board who helped in making this article more presentable. I would like to dedicate this article
to my parents who have been a constant source of support, encouragement, and inspiration for me.
I. This is the direct result of the globalization of the world economy. In this article
globalization signifies a phenomena of liberalization of economies through privatization, shifting of
power from state to private actors, and removal of national barriers with reference to market, capital,
services, governance, etc.
2. A definition of MNC is offered in Part il. Despite differences between MNCs and
transnational corporations (TNCs). I have used MNCs to indicate both. See DAVID C. KORTEN, WHEN
CORPORATIONS RULE THE WORLD 125 (1995); PETER MUCHLINSKI, MULTINATIONAL ENTERPRISES
AND THE LAW 12-15 (1995); CYNTHIA D. WALLACE. LEGAL CONTROL OF THE MULTINATIONAL
ENTERPRISE 10-12 (1982).
3. This refers to international institutions, nation-states. MNCs, non-governmental
or:nizations (NGOs). the media, consumers, and academia.
4. See. e.g., Steven R. Ratner, CorporatioLr and Ilomnan Rights: A Theory of Legal
Responsibility, III YALE L.J. 443, 461 (2001) (arguing that a system in which the state is the sole
target of international legal obligations may not be sufficient to protect human rights): Barbara A. Frey.
The Legal and Ethical Responsibilities of Transnoational Corporations in the Protection of International
Huntan Rights, 6 MINN. J. GLOBAL TRADE 153, 158 (1997) (pointing out that '[tlhe United Nations and
its individual member states face increasing pressure to regulate the behavior of non-state actors in
regard to human rights). It should further be noted that the summary of the U.N. Code of Conduct on
Transnational Corporations of 1986 also recognized that the pervasive role of transnational
corporations in the world economy requires the formulation of guidelines for their conduct. 7he United
Nationst Code of Conduct on Transnational Corporations, U.N. Centre on Transnational Corporations,
at I, U.N. Doc. ST/CTC/SER.A/4 (1988) [hereinafter 1986 U.N. Code of Conduct].](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/conjil19&div=7&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Human Rights Violations by Multinational Corporations and International Law: Where from Here?
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