Transnational corporations and the legal architecture of impunity: corporate social responsibility, lex mercatoria and human rights

Authors

  • Juan Hernández Zubizarreta Observatorio de Multinacionales en América Latina (OMAL) – Paz con Dignidad
  • Erika González Observatorio de Multinacionales en América Latina (OMAL) – Paz con Dignidad
  • Pedro Ramiro Observatorio de Multinacionales en América Latina (OMAL) – Paz con Dignidad

Abstract

The strength of the new lex mercatoria for the effective protection of business interests contrasts with the absence of mechanisms for the fulfilment of their human rights obligations. There is a manifest fragility of International Human Rights Law; and corporate social responsibility (CSR) is nothing more than a soft law based on voluntariness, unilateralism and legal non-exigibility. Two decades after the paradigm of "responsible business" was launched as a supposed leap forward in the model of relations between multinationals and society as a whole, it seems clear that CSR was never intended to be an effective instrument to control large corporations. Hence the need for changes in national legislation. But also, and above all, to advance in international regulations capable of encompassing all the complexity of the large economic conglomerates, with criteria that transcend the state framework and break the apparent separation between parent company and subsidiaries.

Published

2021-06-03

How to Cite

Hernández Zubizarreta, J., González, E., & Ramiro, P. (2021). Transnational corporations and the legal architecture of impunity: corporate social responsibility, lex mercatoria and human rights. Journal of Critical Economics, 2(28), 41–54. Retrieved from https://revistaeconomiacritica.org/index.php/rec/article/view/234

Issue

Section

Rethinking the Enterprise