A Study On The International Regulation Of The Human Rights Responsibility Of Transnational Companies

The overwhelming supremacy of TNCs goes hand in hand with their gross and massive violations of human rights.There is recently a widespread accusation that TNCs exploit their workersuse child labor,pollute the environment,exploit natural resources,participate in human trafficking,and finance conflict throughout the world.There are three main concerns with regard to the international regulation of the human rights responsibility of TNCs.The first one is the lack of international regulation of the human rights responsibility of TNCs under various international and regional human rights instruments.Despite their overwhelming power and influence in the international arena,international human rights instruments and the various regional human rights instruments do not impose explicit human rights obligations on TNCs.This lack of international regulation of the human rights responsibility of TNCs by the various international human rights instruments can be explained by the fact the economic context of global market forces which contributed to the recognition of the intersection of human rights with global markets is a matter that was not on the agenda during the conceptualization of human rights.The second one is the regulation of the human rights responsibility of TNCs through voluntary or soft law approach.The international impunity of TNCs,have led to the adoption of various internationally CSR instruments to regulate the adverse impact of the activities of TNC on human rights through voluntary and soft law.However the soft law or voluntary approach has also shown its limitation given that such CSR instrument lack normativity and effective enforcement mechanism.In response to the dissatisfaction with the CSR regime,the UN has taken a hard law approach to regulating the human rights responsibility of TNCs and other businesses since 2014.Hard law is the United Nations’ most recent and most current approach to regulating corporate human rights responsibility through the negotiation of a legally binding instrument on TNCs.Nevertheless,it has become evident that the international consensus that is necessary to adopt such a legally binding instrument as well as the political will that is required to implement it once it has been adopted make it difficult to assure their success.The last one is the regulation the human rights responsibility of TNCs through international investment agreements(IIAs)which are concluded to protect economic interests.In recent treaty practice,a number of IIAs have begun to incorporate direct and mandatory human rights obligations to investors,indicating that IIAs can be a promising avenue for the international regulation of TNCs’ human rights responsibility.However,there are many shortcomings or deficiencies in the current human rights treaty approach,the corporate social responsibility approach and the investment agreement approach regarding the international regulation of TNCs’ human rights responsibility.Drawing on each of these three approaches,this study proposes an approach to improve the international regulation of TNCs’ human rights responsibility.This thesis argues that a dynamic model rooted in international investment agreements and fundamentally based on various best practices in treaty practice,which includes mandatory and direct human rights obligations of investors in international investment agreements,may be a more pragmatic approach to regulating TNCs’ international human rights responsibility.