LCHR Statement to the UN on Working Methods and Activities of Transnational Corporations

July 29, 2024

The Lawyers Committee has closely followed the Working Group’s efforts to develop the Draft Norms of Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights, and has taken numerous opportunities to comment on the drafts produced by the Working Group. We have noted that the alterations have been, by and large, extremely progressive and we have called upon the Working Group to adopt the Draft Norms in 2003. We now urge the Working Group to obtain their adoption by the Sub-Commission as a whole without further delay.

The Lawyers Committee advocates for the rights of workers by supporting models of corporate accountability and strong national regulation. Workers drive the new international economy, yet millions of them - typically drawn from the most vulnerable groups in society - endure substandard working conditions daily. The great majority of these workers are young women and children. Forced labor, long working hours without compensation for overtime, and violations of workplace health and safety standards are common in many of the factories where they work.

Exacerbating the situation is the nature of the global supply chain. In many low-wage, labor-intensive industries like clothing or toys, companies have become marketing and distribution companies. They own few, if any, of their production facilities. They rely on foreign suppliers in poor countries, particularly in Asia and Latin America, where wages are low and where local government regulations are weak, and enforcement weaker still.

Workers caught in this chain are largely unprotected from abuses, either by their own governments or by the international system. Current international standards focused on state action have failed for a variety of reasons: 1) governments’ inability to sanction powerful corporations; 2) non-existence of local laws to protect labor; 3) good laws rendered useless because of weak enforcement and; 4) overt efforts to thwart freedom of association, unions - elements of civil society. Because these conditions are so prevalent, factories in much of the world are virtually unregulated, and violations of basic rights are endemic.

The Lawyers Committee has long advocated that, where national legal regulation of the work place is inadequate, international regulation must fill the gap. Rather than an end in itself, international regulation acts to create an upward pressure on national regulation. The Draft Norms, by specifying that States are responsible for assuring that the Norms are implemented by transnational corporations, but that responsibility for implementation equally rests with the multinational companies themselves, adds momentum to the dialectic between international and national regulation of workers rights.

In increasingly interdependent economic systems, the growing power of multinational business must be directed towards ensuring minimum labor standards in workplaces across the world. Voluntary initiatives must be complemented by a more detailed affirmation of the legal obligations held by transnational corporations. The Draft Norms encourage just the sort of investments in human capital and societal infrastructure that are needed for a more sustainable and prosperous world that better serves both business and broader social interests.

The Lawyers Committee welcomes the Draft Norms as a vital first step toward a comprehensive international legal framework that raises the bar for global business action. The Draft Norms promote accountability by exposing corporate decision-making to public scrutiny, by requiring standardized reporting and independent monitoring. This Working Group should be heartily commended for the years of work and the extensive consultations that have gone into molding this historic document.

We join other major human rights, environment, and development NGOs in strongly urging the adoption of the Norms by the full U.N. Sub-Commission at this session. Moreover, we call on the Sub-Commission to simultaneously adopt the Commentary for the Norms. While the Norms themselves are distinguished by setting out in one document all the major legal obligations binding on transnational businesses, the rigorous scholarship that has resulted in the Commentary adds indispensable detail and guidance to interpretation of the Norms. This additional detail forms an integral part of the Norms and the historic achievement that their adoption by the Sub-Commission would represent. It is therefore imperative that the Commentary also receives immediate endorsement by the Sub-Commission, and is linked to the Draft Norms.

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