Jonge, Alice de --- "Expanding the limits" [2008] MonashBusRw 62; (2008) 4(3) Monash Business Review 8

Expanding the limits

Alice de Jonge

This is a summary from a paper published in The International Financial Review, Volume 9.

Efforts to create an international system for corporate responsibility should now be concentrated not on the drafting of yet more rules and standards, but on the strengthening of existing international institutions.

Alice de Jonge’s paper (of which this is a brief summary) first outlines the problems with using standards that are generally not enforceable within national courts to make global corporations accountable. It is argued that at least some of these obstacles could be overcome by strengthening already existing international institutions. Four such institutional structures are examined: the existing regional human rights bodies; the International Criminal Court (ICC); International Labor Organisation (ILO) institutions and an expanded International Court of Justice (ICJ).

It is increasingly apparent that there is a need for greater clarity at the international level on the extent to which transnational corporations (TNCs) should be held responsible for protecting, respecting and promoting human rights.

If corporate responsibility is to be given meaning, then a common framework that identifies the rights relevant to business and the limits of a company’s responsibility to implement them is required. In this essay, Dr de Jonge argues that by building on and strengthening existing institutions of international law jurisprudence, mechanisms for defining and clarifying the boundaries of international law when applied to TNCs can also be created.

Some proposals, such as expanding the work of international human rights tribunals to include scrutinising the activities of TNCs, may be somewhat idealistic in the face of political and resource constraints, but that does not mean they should not be tried.

What might be more immediately feasible is to expand the jurisdiction of the ICC in cases of grievous abuses of human rights to cover not just natural persons, but legal (corporate) persons as well.

Similarly hopeful are proposals for strengthening the supervisory powers of the ILO, and for continuing the gradual reform of ICJ procedural rules to allow increased access to the court by civil society organisations.

Cite this article as

de Jonge, Alice. 'Expanding the limits'. Monash Business Review. 2008.; Monash University ePress: Victoria, Australia. http://www.epress.monash.edu.au/. : 8–9. DOI:10.2104/mbr08062

About the author

Alice de Jonge

Department of Business Law and Taxation, Monash University