Name(s):
Ineffective international regulation of transnational corporations
Background
Efforts to establish a UN system for accountability for corporations began in the early 1970s when the then Chilean president Salvatore Allende appealed to the General Assembly to establish legally enforceable rules to counter TNC-sponsored political destabilization. Partly in response to international outrage in response to the role of USA corporations in the Chilean coup (during which Allende was murdered), the UN established a Commission on Transnational Corporations charged with drawing up a code of conduct. Successive drafts of the code have been diluted at the insistence of industrialized countries since that time.
Incidence
In 1992, the aim of the industrialized countries was to have all discussion of the linkages between trade and environmental sustainability transferred to the [GATT Uruguay Round] where TNCs successfully negotiated a model for environmental deregulation such that unrestricted free trade takes precedence, under GATT rules, over environmental policy. All references to TNCs were deleted from the [Agenda 21] arising from the Earth Summit in exchange for a promise of self-regulation by TNCs in the interests of sustainable development. Efforts by the UN towards a code of conduct were abandoned in 1992 as part of this process.
Claim
Without effective international regulations governing TNC investment and production policies, Agenda 21 will remain a set of empty rhetorical commitments. The world's largest 500 TNCs account for almost one third of the global GDP and control some 70% of world trade, with over 40% being carried out within TNCs. Consequently the way in which goods and services are produced and marketed is dictated by an increasingly smaller group of powerful corporations which frequently seek to turn low environmental standards into increased profit margins.