Regulating Multinational Enterprises

Abstract

Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) were, until relatively recently, deemed to be outside the purview of International Economic Law (IEL). More recently this has changed. MNEs are visible and much of the contemporary agenda of IEL concerns the facilitation of their operations, specifically, through the increasing integration of trade and investment issues in new generation Preferential Trade and Investment Agreements (PTIAs). These developments have created growing worries over the loss of sovereignty by States and have prompted the rise of a critical alternative position that seeks to rebalance IEL towards a re-assertion of State regulatory power and of values other than the purely economic values. Here Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), or Civil Society Groups (CSGs), play a significant role seeking to curb what they perceive as unaccountable excesses of corporate power supported by the retreat of the State from regulatory control. This trend does not obviate the need to address issues of distributive justice, social solidarity and sustainable development that challenge any purely facilitative calculation about corporate freedoms. It requires action to rebalance both domestic and international rules concerning the operations of MNEs and to reign in corporate excesses. The problem is how to do this if the State remains wedded to the core idea of market liberalisation and corporate freedom. This paper will seek to unravel this conundrum in the context of the development of PTIAs and their impact on MNE regulation.