Transnational Trade Research Articles

Transnational Corporations and the Disjoint of Traditional Structures of Liability to Victims

For as long as they have been on the scene, transnational corporations (‘TNCs’) have been a persistent problem for legal scholars at both the theoretical and practical level. In practical terms, the underdevelopment of legal rules applicable to the TNC in a jurisdiction in which it operates, legal inaction or complicity in wrongful acts on the part of state authorities, and the rise of dispersed corporate governance models, have allowed the TNC a great measure of freedom and consequent irresponsibility in choosing legal and judicial regimes which avoid the imposition of protective legal rules and help maximise profit by condoning mass cost externalizations. Theoretically, this situation has generated a great deal of uncertainty as to the place of the Corporation as an actor at the international or transnational level, or as to its relationship with local populations in the places in which it does business. A plethora of concepts exists, which is often invoked to justify particular approaches towards regulation of TNCs or transnational trade and investment generally; of this, justice and party autonomy stand apart as two of the most controversial and misunderstood, used by both sides on the debate to defend often diametrically opposing positions. This paper presents, in very brief outline, some of the main features of the existing legal landscape in respect of TNC - third-party legal relations.

The (UN-) Systematic Nature of the UN Criminal Justice System: The (NON) Relationship Between the Draft Illicit Tobacco Trade Protocol and the UN Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime

The illicit trade in tobacco, a transnational trade directed at the evasion of taxes on tobacco products, and a trade which commonly involves organised crime, has recently become the subject of international attention. At its second session, the Conference of the Parties to the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) decided to establish an Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) to draft and negotiate a protocol on the illicit trade in tobacco products. The aim was to build

Understanding globalization through football: The new international division of labour, migratory channels and transnational trade circuits

Among all sports, football is the one that saw the largest diffusion during the 20th century. Professional leagues exist on all continents and professional footballers are constantly on the move, trying to reach the wealthiest European clubs. Using the football players’ market as an example, this article highlights some key features of economic globalization: the new international division of labour, the ever increasing role played by intermediaries to bind the demand and supply of work on a transnational scale, and the setting up of spatially fragmented trade circuits. These processes form the basis for the creation of a global market of footballers in which clubs and championships play complementary roles and are more than ever functionally integrated beyond national borders.

Transnational family networks in the Somali diaspora in Egypt: women's roles and differentiated experiences

Diasporic Somalis are increasingly leading a transnational life in which family members are sustained through networks of relations, obligations and resources that are located in different nation-states. These networks and relations enable diasporic Somalis to seek safety for themselves and their relatives, minimize risks and maximize family resources. In this article, I examine three key dimensions of such a way of life, namely: migration; remittances; and transnational family care. I focus on the roles that women play in this family-based support system. For instance, women move and facilitate the movement of other family members; they remit to family members; and they provide care for children and sick relatives. But these transnational households are not free from tensions. Family members are placed in hierarchical relations shaped by age; parental authority; possession of western citizenship; financial resources; and bonds of familial reciprocity and gratitude. Women gain appreciation from relatives and a sense of self-respect for their new roles. Some of the women also make use of the family network to arrange for the care of their children and sick relatives, while they engage in transnational trading activities. However, young and single female relatives often sacrifice or delay their individual dreams because of their familial obligations. I conclude that transnationalism – as a way of organizing and sustaining livelihood, resources and relations of Somali families – is not always emancipating or marginalizing for Somali women. Rather the benefits and challenges of such a way of life for women are different, mixed and uneven.

Transnational corporations, labour relations and trade unions – the case of Russia

Transnational corporations, labour relations and trade unions – the case of Russia

Organizing the "Unorganized": Varieties of Transnational Trade Union Collaboration and Social Dialogue in Two Indian Cities

Organizing the "Unorganized": Varieties of Transnational Trade Union Collaboration and Social Dialogue in Two Indian Cities

Multilareral Environment Agreements Versus the World Trade Organization System

Problem statement: Since the inception of WTO in 1994, the protection of environment has evolved as a key issue due to recurrent trade t ransaction occurring among the states. WTO constituted a committee on Trade and Environment in 1995 to evaluate the scope of complementarities between trade liberalization and environmental protection. However Doha Development Agenda of 2001 and Article XX of GATT have proven to be a beacon light in such an evaluation but still it is observed that various st ates have resorted to varied margin of appreciation in applying restrictions. Thus this article bewrays th e varied practices adopted by the states in this regards. Approach: Determining the approach of the states in striking a balance between the transnational trade practices and protecting enviro nment from depletion caused by such practices. Also to determine an efficacious method for dealing the existing menace. The research methodology resorted to in the completion of this article is do ctrinal in nature. The sources escorted belong to t he genre of both external and internal. Omnibus of art icles, books and electronic resources have been referred to for completing the article. The method of writing is primarily descriptive. The official website of WTO has proven to be of tremendous help. A uniform mode of citation has been followed throughout the article. Result: There are myriad of multilateral environmental agr eements which usually incorporate environmental norms that may re sult in clashes with trade norms of the WTO. Reconciliation can only be possible with good faith negotiations under the Doha Development Agenda with renewed vigour and full commitments from both trade and environment advocates. Conclusion: In the event of any future conflict between the WTO ru les and MEAs, trade advocates cannot simply argue that the WTO Agreements take priority and thus prevail over any other conflicting international treaties because the environmental side has the abi lity to argue the same. Thus the best way to avoid such a situation is to include a 'conflict clause' or at least to contain cross references in both typ es of Agreements.

The Difficulty in the Recognition of Musculoskeletal Disorders between Transnational Medical Specialists, National Authorities and Social Players

The Difficulty in the Recognition of Musculoskeletal Disorders between Transnational Medical Specialists, National Authorities and Social Players The history of periarticular pathologies contains a transnational dimension and harkens back to the labour movements and their socio-political claims. But it was difficult to prove the existence of a causal relationship between work and pathologies. Therefore, many states avoided for a long time to recognize Musculoskeletal Disorders as illnesses for which compensations can be paid. The first part of this article contextualizes the history of the recognition of musculoskeletal illnesses and the first steps on the road to a common European economic policy in the 1960s. At this time, the European Economic Community (EEC) placed health at work on its agenda and invited the member states to elaborate new common regulations, including musculoskeletal disorders among the problems to be dealt with. The second part examines the 1980s and 1990s, a period during which the majority of industrial countries saw a spectacular rise in the incidence of periarticular workrelated illnesses. At this moment, inter- and transnational experts, researchers and trade unionists were in the spotlight. While national states only hesitantly hand over health care political sovereignty rights, transnational dynamics claim the recognition of work-related health problems.

Review: Resisting Global Toxics: Transnational Movements for Environmental Justice

Review: Resisting Global Toxics: Transnational Movements for Environmental Justice By David Naguib Pellow Reviewed by Byron Anderson Northern Illinois University, USA Pellow, David Naguib. Resisting Global Toxics: Transnational Movements for Environmental Justice. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2007. ix, 346 pp. ISBN: 978-0-262- 16244-9. US$62, cloth. ISBN: 978-0-262-66201-7. US$25, paper. Printed on recycled paper. Resisting Global Toxics explores “the export of hazardous waste (through trading and dumping) to poor communities and communities of color around the world and charts the mobilization of transnational environmental justice movement networks to document and resist these practices” (p. 2). The text covers the transnational waste trade from its beginnings in the 1980s to the present, and builds on the knowledge base in the literature of environmental justice studies, environmental sociology, social movements, race theory, and transnational waste trade. It advances the global toxics debate in the areas of environmental justice, human rights, and sustainability. Transnational movements for environmental justice are a rising force of opposition to transnational wastes. Examples of these transnational networks include Global Response, Rainforest Action Network, Pesticide Action Network, and Greenpeace. These movements often help define environmental justice. For example, indigenous peoples may not define their struggle in terms of environmental justice, but rather as struggles of self-determination and territorial rights. Social movement power connects environmental justice with human rights, something that “elevates and deepens the discourse, the struggle, and the framework within which activists’ claims can be made and resolved” (p. 238). The book contributes two aspects to the broader picture of transnational waste trade. First, it incorporates the literature of race theory so as to better understand global toxic disposal as a practice of institutional racism. The author correctly asserts the “…global inequalities are rarely framed as racial inequalities” (p. 68), though toxic chemicals and racism are linked. The world of toxic waste is divided into the global North and the global South. The latter includes poor communities and nations within the global North. Annually, 90 percent, or three million tons, of the total transnational waste trade, cross international borders to the global South. The second aspect is in highlighting the debate around the power of transnational corporations. Transnational corporations, an unparalleled institutional force in the world today, have routinely exercised hegemony over domestic and transnational political processes in toxic waste trade. Strong corporations, weak states, a lack of social capital, and the presence of poverty drive regional environmental inequalities. Transnational movement networks are calling for more producer responsibility that hold producers and brand owners financially responsible for the life cycle impacts of their products. The emphasis is on take back and end-of-life management of products. Ecological modernizing would link economic development to rising environmental

Le seconde generazioni di fronte alla precarizzazione e all'etnicizzazione del lavoro in Francia

- This article examines the situation of immigrant young generations in France, with a specific focus on their process of insertion in the labour market. As it emerges from different sources, this process can be influenced both by ethnic forms of discrimination and by precarious employment. The biographical paths of the second generation testifies on one hand the fragmentation and the ethnic stratification of the labour market, while on the other economic issues are entrenched, with the multiplication of the spaces of transnational trade and its related factors. The main opportunities available for the second generation, at a local level, relate to trajectories of ethnic enclaves or ethnic niches and to the access to selected forms of employments, mainly as care-workers. However, some groups are able to start up ethnic transnational businesses. Consequently, against a background characterised by globalisation and uncertainty, only some individuals succeed in managing a process of globalized individualization. Keywords: Labour Market, Immigration in France, Second Generation, Discrimination.

For a Global Shareholder Society

With the American economy seemingly stalling, the global economy thereby imperiled, and another electoral campaign season well underway in the U.S., the of jobs from the developed to the developing world is again on the public agenda. Latest figures indicate not only that layoffs and claims for joblessness benefits are up in the U.S., but also that the rate of American job-exportation has more than doubled since the last electoral cycle. This year's American political candidates have been quick to take note. In consequence, more than at any time since the early 1990s, continued American, and with it other developed economies', participation in the World Trade Organization and processes of global economic integration more generally appear to be up for grabs. It is not clear, on reflection, how to regard these developments from a normative point of view. On the one hand, there seems no gainsaying the claim that the gradual removal of transnational trade and investment barriers have resulted in more rapid economic growth worldwide. And that growth appears to be lifting many once desperately poor persons out of their erstwhile penury. Yet on the other hand, there also would seem no denying that global trade and investment liberalization are wreaking losses at least as conspicuous as the gains. For many if not most of the victims of globalization are those who till recently occupied positions much like those that are coming to be occupied by globalization's more sympathetic beneficiaries, and who climbed out of them via precisely such legislated standards as offshoring firms now evade. Might we pay Peter without robbing Paul? This Article proposes an ethically and intuitively attractive answer to that question rooted in financial engineering. The key is to channel a portion of the globalization-wrought gains reaped by outsourcing firms to the outsourced employees themselves. This way the latter are directly benefited by the very processes that currently harm them. The method proposed is to adapt the familiar Employee Stock Ownership Plan, or ESOP, to spread firm-shares not simply to current labor, but to outsourced and otherwise harmed shadow labor as well. The Article also proposes means of diversifying the portfolio risk that will face OutsourceSOP participants, and maps the supporting role apt to be played by such globalization-constitutive financial institutions as the IMF and the World Bank. In the long run, the Article urges, we have here the makings of a grander ambition that all the world's inhabitants can jointly support - a Global Shareholder Society.

The Transnational Traffic in Human Body Parts

Organized criminal syndicates, notable for their adaptability to opportunities offered by changing social and market conditions, have become involved in the transnational trade in human organs. The complexity of such operations, however, has to date restricted organized crime groups to a limited segment of the worldwide trafficking in human body parts. This article offers evidence indicating that the fear of the theft of body parts plays a prominent part in communities where poverty and victimization are widespread. The horror of involuntary bodily mutilation feeds into scripts that tend to exaggerate organized crime's role in such activities.

Insource the Shareholding of Outsourced Employees: A Global Stock Ownership Plan

With the American economy stalled and another federal election campaign season well underway, the of American jobs is again on the public agenda. Latest figures indicate not only that claims for joblessness benefits are up, but also that the rate of American job-exportation has more than doubled since the last electoral cycle. This year's political candidates have been quick to take note. In consequence, more than at any time since the early 1990s, continued American participation in the World Trade Organization, in the North American Free Trade Agreement, and in the processes of global economic integration more generally appear to be up for grabs.It isn't clear, on reflection, how to regard these developments from a normative point of view. On the one hand, there seems no gainsaying that the gradual removal of transnational trade and investment barriers have resulted in more rapid economic growth worldwide. And that growth appears to be lifting many once desperately poor persons out of their erstwhile penury. Yet on the other hand, there also is no denying that global trade and investment liberalization are wreaking losses at least as conspicuous as the gains. For many if not most of the victims of globalization are those who till recently occupied positions much like those now coming to be occupied by globalization's more sympathetic beneficiaries, and who climbed out of them via precisely those legislated standards that offshoring firms now evade. Might we pay Peter without robbing Paul?This Article proposes an ethically and intuitively attractive answer to that question rooted in financial engineering. The key is to channel a portion of the globalization-wrought gains reaped by outsourcing firms to the outsourced employees themselves. That way the latter are directly benefited by the very processes that currently are harming them. The method proposed is to adapt the already familiar Employee Stock Ownership Plan, or ESOP, to spread shares not simply to current labor, but now to shadow labor as well. The Article also proposes means of diversifying the portfolio risk that will face OutsourceSOP participants, and sketches a supporting role for such international financial institutions as the IMF and the World Bank. In the long run, the Article concludes, we have here the makings of a future Global Shareholder Society.

Global production networks, ethical campaigning, and the embeddedness of responsible governance

This article presents a theoretically informed consideration of the role of ethical campaigning in shaping organizational practices of power and authority in global production networks (GPNs). It does so through a focus on responsibility, and the ways in which ethical consumption is challenging the organization of global networks of supply. The arguments draw upon and develop two geographical approaches to understanding transnational trade, namely the GPN framework and the study of commodity knowledge. First, understandings of ethical consumption and circuitous commodity knowledge are mobilized to capture the practices of knowledge translation through which ethics are woven into particular forms of supply network coordination. Second, through a comparative case study of UK and US corporate retailers’ ethical trading programmes, notions of embeddedness advanced by the GPN framework are used and further developed to illuminate how the mobilization of ethics into different forms of network coordination involves organizational processes influenced by spaces of retail and consumption. It is argued from this that the influences of retail and consumption should be more fully incorporated into analytical frameworks for understanding GPNs.

Darfurian Livelihoods and Libya: Trade, Migration, and Remittance Flows in Times of Conflict and Crisis

Labor migration and commerce between Sudan and Libya have long been features of livelihoods in Darfur. This paper describes the importance of historical trade and migration links between Darfur and Libya, and provides a background to the political and economic situation in Libya which has influenced opportunities for Sudanese migrant workers. A case study of the situation of the Darfurian migrants in Kufra (an oasis and transnational trade hub in southern Libya) illustrates how the recent Darfur conflict has affected migration patterns from Darfur and remittance flows in the opposite direction. Official estimates of Darfurian migrant workers in Libya were unavailable but were estimated to be between 150,000 and 250,000. The closure of the national border between Sudan and Libya in May 2003, largely a result of insecurity in Darfur, stopped the traffic of migrant workers between northern Darfur and southern Libya (which prevented the onward travel to Sudan of several thousand migrants in Kufra), and curtailed the well-established trade routes, communications, and remittance flows. The current limited economic prospects for migrant workers in Libya, combined with the threat of detention, difficulties of return to Sudan, and loss of contact with and uncertainty about the fate of their families in Darfur, have created a sense of despair among many Darfurians. The paper concludes with a series of recommendations to improve the conditions of the Darfurian migrants in Libya, including an amnesty for illegal migrants, and also to ease the travel of migrants, promote communications between Libya and Darfur, and support the flow of remittances.

Dress and Cultural Strategy: Tai Peddlers in Transnational Trade along the Burma – Yunnan Frontier

This paper explores transnational trade carried out by the Tai, an ethnic nationality spread across the border area between Shan State in Myanmar and Dehong Prefecture in Yunnan province in China. The Tai who live in this border region belong to a linguistic group that has long shared cultural and linguistic traits with the Thai in Thailand and other Tai-speaking groups in Vietnam, Laos and other parts of Southeast Asia. This paper focuses on the Tai peddlers who conduct trade between Thailand and Shan state in commodities such as Thai and Tai traditional clothing and entertainment VCDs featuring Shan and Thai songs. The focus is on peddling in traditional Thai dress styles that are popular with Dehong Tai customers. The author contends that dress practices have gained a meaning and status in displaying acquired wealth, and this has resulted in shifting status hierarchy among members of Dehong Tai society. Wearing certain clothes becomes a self-identification that the Dehong Tai use to manifest their social position in public. This in turn helps them to destabilize both their lower-status position in the Han-dominated Chinese society and the cultural imbalance between themselves and the Chinese.

European and World Works Councils and the evolution of transnational trade union collaboration: lessons from the European car industry 1 December 2006, IRES Paris

European and World Works Councils and the evolution of transnational trade union collaboration: lessons from the European car industry 1 December 2006, IRES Paris

Not in my port: The “death ship” of sheep and crimes of agri-food globalization

We examine crime that emerges from the global restructuring of agriculture and food systems by employing the case of the Australian “Ship of Death,” whereby nearly 58,000 sheep were stranded at sea for almost 3 months in 2003, violating the Western Australia Animal Welfare Act of 2002. This case demonstrates that the acceleration of transnational trade networks, in the context of agri-food globalization, victimizes animals and constitutes a crime. Herein, we examine this case in depth and show how economic restructuring, driven by a “logic of capital” orientation, can exert pressure on the state causing it to fail to enforce its own regulations and in this way engage in criminal actions.

Shuttling Goods, Weaving Consumer Tastes: Informal Trade between Turkey and Russia

AbstractIn ‘top down’ conceptualizations of globalization, people often enter the analytical picture merely as resisters to globalization or as receivers of corporate produced goods, messages and ideas. This article, in contrast, focuses on a process in which ‘ordinary’ people are the active makers of global processes and meanings. I describe the transnational trade network between post‐Soviet countries and Turkey, in which Western fashions and images get circulated and transformed through the activities of informal entrepreneurs. I thus challenge accounts of globalization in which the dissemination of images is depicted as a top down process originating in corporations located in metropolitan countries. Based on ethnographic evidence collected in Istanbul and Moscow on the informal ‘shuttle trade’, I demonstrate that the mobility of ‘ordinary’ people across borders facilitates the flows of signs and images. Moreover, Western images and fashions get remoulded and acquire new meanings in the process of circulation.

Geographies of exchange and circulation: transnational trade and governance

Geographies of exchange and circulation: transnational trade and governance