MNCS and human rights: current status and future directions

Submission note: A thesis submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Juridical Science to the La Trobe Law School, Faculty of Business, Economics and Law, La Trobe University, Bundoora.

This thesis examines the responsibilities of multinational corporations (MNCs) for human rights violations. Chapter I of this thesis defines and explains what multinational corporations are, and the manner in which they play a dominant role in the globalized economy. Chapter I also lays out the research questions and methods used for this research. Chapter I concludes that multinational corporations have ambiguous legal status, and that ambiguity, in turn, can prevents international human rights law from effective regulation of MNCs. Chapter II examines the relationship between human rights law and the global economy. Chapter II argues and concludes that human rights law should be an integral part of the emerging law of the global economy. Chapter III addresses the place of multinational corporations in contemporary international law and determines that international law often serves to protect multinational corporations through various domestic State laws of foreign investment. Chapter III also notes that in recent decades, various domestic laws governing foreign investment have taken on an increasingly regulatory hue and concludes that multinational corporations should generally be treated as subjects of international law, with analogous rights and duties, similar—but not identical—to those possessed by independent States. Chapter IV uses a series of examples of alleged human rights abuses to survey evolving human rights norms in determining whether they are applicable to multinational corporations’ activities. Finally, this thesis concludes by proposing ways in which the emerging norms of human rights law applicable to multinational corporations may be implemented and enforced and evaluates the efficacy of international mechanisms or coordinated domestic approaches for the effective regulation of corporate human rights abuses.