PHM-Exch> The EU and corporate impunity

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: David G Legge <dlegge at phmovement.org>


Vargas, M., et al. (2018). "The EU and the corporate impunity nexus:
Building the UN binding treaty on transnational corporations and human
rights." Retrieved 2 Feb, 2019, from
https://www.tni.org/files/publication-downloads/the_eu_and_corporate_impunity_nexus.pdf.


For decades, affected communities around the globe have been resisting the
modus operandi of transnational corporations (TNCs) in their territories
and workplaces and documenting systemic human rights violations and the
track record of corporate impunity with their lives and their deaths.
Corporate impunity is embedded in and protected by an ‘architecture of
impunity’ that legitimises and legalises the operations of TNCs. This
architecture has been established through free trade and investment
agreements, the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the structural adjustment
policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and other
financial instruments and the aggressive push for public-private
partnerships (PPPs). At the core of this architecture is the infamous
investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system, a private arbitration
system that allows TNCs to sue states whenever they consider that their
future profits are threatened by new measures or policies aiming at
improving social and environmental protection. Thus, it neutralises the
function of the state, whose primary responsibility is to defend public
interest and protect the well-being of its citizens and the planet from
corporate interests. Furthermore, the development of multi-stakeholderism
has provided a framework that enables TNCs to usurp core political roles in
democratic institutions. The role of TNCs in the workings of the UN system
is becoming increasingly pervasive, especially since the creation of the
Global Compact and the corporate-funded UN Foundation and as can clearly be
seen in the current round of negotiations on bindings obligations for TNCs
at the United Nations (UN).
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