1. The international norms on multinational corporations
The study of multinational corporations in international law is rather recent. 9 though they have been actors on the international scene for a long time. The major trading companies that existed in Europe, such as the East India Company and the Dutch East India Company,though they were not multinational corporations in the modern sense, were the progenitors of imperial rule. The modern multinational corporation is better integrated due to superior means of communication and is more cohesive due to integrated modes of production. They are respon sible for all the investment flows that take place. 10 The largest of these multinational corporations command financial assets in excess of those controlled by some states. Their role in domestic and international affairs cannot be under-estimated. As major repositories of power, they advanced rules and codes of conduct which suited their interests. They have the capacity to influence the course of international events and to shape principles
of international law. It has been a defect in the theory of international law that this fact has not been accommodated in theoretical constructs of the law. The idea of the open seas was formulated at the behest of trading companies so as to ensure that they had open access to the seas to favour their maritime trading interests. 11 The system of appointing diplomatic agents for the protection of nationals owes its origins to the system of agents appointed by corporations to look after their commercial interests. 12 Colonies were first conquered by corporations before they were attached to an imperial system. State-centred theories of international law have, however, never recognised the fact that trading corporations have been forces within the international system with the capacity to generate international norms of behaviour or, at least, to have an influence on the shaping of the forms these rules take. 13 The power of the companies continued long after the imperial states took over from the trading companies and established their sovereignty over the colonies. In the Middle East, oil diplomacy, upon which power depended in the twentieth century, was pursued as much by the major oil corporations as by their home states. 14 It was evident that the system of investment protection through contractual means was devised largely through the activity of individuals and organisations that were keen on protecting the interests of these corporations. The law that was built up through private means of law-making focusing on arbitral awards that result from consensual procedures of decision-making and the writings of scholars who were desirous of building up of a system of investment protection through the instrumentality of international law. Multinational corporations are thus able to make law by using
low-order sources of international law, arbitral decisions and the writings of ‘highly
qualified publicists ’.
đang được dịch, vui lòng đợi..
