Abstract
The United Nations Code of Conduct for Transnational Corporations (TNCs) has been over fifteen years in the making. In spite of intense negotiations, high expectations and espoused common purposes, the international community was scarcely closer to a code in 1988 than when the idea was first introduced in 1972. While formal sessions are still held annually, substantive negotiations on this code essentially ended in 1984.
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Notes
For a discussion of the international situation during the period of the code’s early development, see Richard J. Barnet and Ronald E. Muller, Global Reach (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974)
J. Tinbergen, Reshaping the International Order (New York: Dutton, 1976)
M. ul Haq, The Poverty Curtain: Choices for the Third World (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976)
K. P. Sauvant and H. Hasenpflug (eds), The New International Economic Order: Conflict or Cooperation between North and South? (Boulder, Co: Westview Press, 1977)
Thomas Moran, Multinational Corporations and the Politics of Dependence, (Princeton University Press, 1974).
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, The Impact of Multinational Corporations on Development and on International Relations, E/5500/Rev.l., ST/ESA/6, 1974, p. 46. (Hereafter referred to as The Impact.)
For a discussion of this development, see K. Sauvant, The Group of 77 (New York: Oceana, 1981)
Charles A. Jones, The North-South Dialogue: A Brief History (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1983)
Thomas G. Weiss, Multilateral Development Diplomacy in UNCTAD: The Lessons of Group Negotiations, 1964–84 (London: Macmillan, 1985).
The original organisation was to have the Commission itself composed of individuals serving in their private capacities; when this idea was rejected in favour of government representation, the addition of expert advisers, a secretariat, and private lobbyists emerged as a compromise. While non-governmental actors have observer status in many UN fora and have come to play a significant role in certain global ad hoc conferences, the active role to TNCs in the work of the Commission is quite exceptional. It is probably most comparable to the role of labour unions in the ILO’s tripartite structure. See Werner Feld, Non-Governmental Forces and World Politics (New York: Praeger, 1972), and Multinational Corporations and UN Politics (New York: Pergamon, 1980).
The lists of concerns can be found in Henry Schwamm and Dimitri Germidis, Code of Conduct for Multinational Companies Issues and Positions (Brussels: European Center for Study and Information on MNCs, 1977), pp. 7–10.
Max Weisglas, ‘International Business and the United Nations Code’, The CTC Reporter, no. 12, New York: UNCTC, Summer 1982, p. 16.
The comparative statistics for this period are found handily in the annexes to the World Bank’s World Development Report, 1986 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).
A discussion of the investment climate during this period can be found in Gerald Curzon and Victoria Curzon, with Larence G. Franko and Henry Schwamm (eds), The Multinational Enterprise in a Hostile World (London: Macmillan, 1977).
Leonard Berry and Robert W. Kates (eds), Making the Most of the Least: Alternative Ways to Development (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1980), p. 245.
For a discussion of this trend, see Krisha Kumar, Multinationals from Developing Countries (Lexington, MA: Lexington, 1981)
Tamir Agmon and Charles Kindleberger (eds), Multinationals from Small Countries (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1977).
The Eastern bloc voted with the Group of 77 when the South had a common view, which is the usual rule for its diplomacy. What changed was the worry by the socialist countries that their own state corporations might be included in the code’s definition. The East has traditionally refused to participate wholeheartedly in economic negotiations by disclaiming any responsibility for the existing system and its malfunctioning. Further, the South’s trade and aid demands on the North are primarily addressed to the capitalist West and not to the East: access to capital, commodity and technology, as well as new rules in such Wester controlled institutions as the World Bank, IMF, and GATT. For purposes of simplification, the role of the socialist bloc has been ignored here. For a more complete discussion, see Geza P. Lauter and Paul M. Dickie, Multinational Corporations and the East European Socialist Economics (New York: Praeger, 1975).
For a background of CTC activities, see Werner Feld, Multinational Corporations and UN Politics (New York: Pergamon Press, 1980); and Sylvanus A. Tiewul, ‘Ten Years of the Commission on Transnational Corporations: Some Reflections’, The CTC Reporter, no. 20, (Autumn 1985), pp. 2–7. Information on current activities can be found in the Commission on Transnational Corporations: Report of their Twelfth Session, 9–18 April 1986 (New York, UNCTC, 1986).
Susan Strange, ‘Cave! hic dragones: a Critique of Regimes Analysis,’ in Stephen Krasner, (ed.), International Regimes (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983), p. 347.
The author has developed this argument in greater depth in Thomas G. Weiss, ‘Alternatives for Multilateral Development Diplomacy: Some Suggestions’, World Development, vol. 13, no. 12 (1985) pp. 1187–209.
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© 1989 David P. Forsythe
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Weiss, T.G. (1989). The UN Code of Conduct for Transnational Corporations. In: Forsythe, D.P. (eds) The United Nations in the World Political Economy. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20196-9_6
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