Research Student: Nasser H. Al-Khalifa
Multinational enterprises (corporations) and their human rights obligations towards their host countries
Planned Submission Date: 31 December 2010
My research is on the role of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in international law and direct foreign investment law. My research deals with the issues of the role Multinationals have been playing, especially since the second half of the 20th century.
It also deals with the issues of direct foreign investment and its impact on transformation of technology, exploitation of natural resources, especially in developing and less developed countries, and the way multinationals have been behaving in terms of environment, human rights issues, and conservation of natural resources in these countries.
The research deals with issues of international legal protections, especially when it comes to investments of multinationals, and the lack of international legal regimes relating to their responsibilities in the host countries as a result of the dominant position multinational enterprises' home countries have had in terms of political, economic, business, and trade areas.
The research will focus on the attempts of the developing countries, especially what came to be known as the group of 77, since early 1960s.
These countries attempt to reform the international legal structure, in order to give them some control over their resources, and the way multinational enterprises behave. This culminated in the 1970s of, what became known as, the new international economic order -- which had its high day as a subject of discussion and confrontation between the developed and developing countries in the late 1970s.
That attempt failed to materialise as a result of changes in world economic structures, which took place in the 1980s, culminating in the predominance in the 1990s of neo-liberal economic philosophy, which gave more power to the advanced capital exporting countries and reversed whatever gains the developing countries thought they might have had.
Of course the research will deal with the GATT and the role the World Trade Organisation (WTO) plays in the future of the international law of trade investments and the role of multinational enterprises.
Furthermore, in my research, I will review the work of the special representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations on the issues of human rights and trans-national corporations and other business enterprises.
I will particularly examine his position against the adoption of international legal conventions that aims to address the responsibility of multinational corporations in the host countries and why ECOSOC was sidelined in dealing with this issue which is within its own jurisdiction in favour of the special representative of the Secretary-General.