Responsibility of Corporations in International Law: Positivism and Transnationalism Revisited

Abstract

This chapter applies Philip C. Jessup’s concept of transnational law and HLA Hart’s idea of international law in transition to an analysis of contemporary efforts to impose international legal accountability on transnational corporations. Using instances from mostly transnational cases seeking to hold corporate actors accountable for violating in particular the norms of international environmental and human rights law, the chapter argues that Jessup’s and Hart’s ideas have converged to such a degree that while the landscape of international law is not as transformed as they would have imagined, it is no longer what it used to. The chapter focuses on international efforts to impose international legal accountability on non-state actors such as transnational corporations as one of the areas where this change has been most noticeable. While those changes may not have led to the unequivocal legal recognition of corporations as subjects of international law or deserving of bearing mandatory international legal obligations, they do point to where the transition may ultimately end.