Abstract
The Ruggie principles have given new impulse to the process of developing and modernizing International Lawthrough the influence of human rights. However, this process has been developed as “soft law” measuresincluded in the corporate social responsibility activities of multinational companies, which academic opiniondeems has lessened the capacity of human rights for transforming international law into more effective and trulybinding instruments to avoid abuses against human dignity. This issue has prompted a debate concerning the roleof multinationals as subjects of international law, and the advisability of returning to more traditional andconservative approaches to governance of globalization and to effective protection of human rights from riskybusiness activities. However, thanks to Common Law traditions, this model may be transformed into binding rules,using the legal tools of private Law. This reveals the utility of such soft Law regulations in creating cultures ofrespect useful when rule of law is weak to rule relations between states, companies and people, that arise fromthe actions of private individuals rather than the activity of public law-making institutions.
Highlights
One of the consequences of the late capitalist system, developed at the end of the 20th century in globalized environments, is the states’ loss of economic control and, the loss of their executive powers to enforce national systems of human rights guarantees with regard to companies’ international economic transactions, whether financial or commercial, and which, in principle, fall under the state’s jurisdiction.The Rule of law Principle is conditioned by the lack of international regulations that enable national systems to effectively overcome territorial boundaries, and to expand national human rights guarantees beyond national frontiers in cases of abuse of power or violations on the part of corporations and multinational companies when developing economic or commercial relationships within third countries
That were conceived in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as protection for personal dignity and the individual’s autonomy when faced with arbitrary action of the part of the state, are left unprotected from the commercial activities of multinational companies that abuse economic positions of power when operating in weak states that are incapable of enforcing their own rights-protection regulations, or where local regulations apply different standards of defense, allowing for actions that violate rights or obstruct national or international controls
It is this new reality, the emergence of multinational companies as subjects of international law, that is driving a new stage in the evolution of human rights protection, which will surely translate in a new stage in the development of international, having significant consequences for global governance and the creation of new legal instruments for managing global coexistence and human rights protection
Summary
One of the consequences of the late capitalist system, developed at the end of the 20th century in globalized environments, is the states’ loss of economic control and, the loss of their executive powers to enforce national systems of human rights guarantees with regard to companies’ international economic transactions, whether financial or commercial, and which, in principle, fall under the state’s jurisdiction. That were conceived in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as protection for personal dignity and the individual’s autonomy when faced with arbitrary action of the part of the state, are left unprotected from the commercial activities of multinational companies that abuse economic positions of power when operating in weak states that are incapable of enforcing their own rights-protection regulations, or where local regulations apply different standards of defense, allowing for actions that violate rights or obstruct national or international controls It is this new reality, the emergence of multinational companies as subjects of international law, that is driving a new stage in the evolution of human rights protection, which will surely translate in a new stage in the development of international, having significant consequences for global governance and the creation of new legal instruments for managing global coexistence and human rights protection
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