Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises: Normative Innovations and Implementation Challenges

Abstract

This paper analyzes the first and still one of the very few international mechanisms established by governments to enable individuals, communities or their representatives to bring complaints against multinational corporations: the National Contact Point system under the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. The paper identifies patterns of complaints over time; it examines what differences exist in these patterns since the adoption of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights as the authoritative global standard in this space, key elements of which were incorporated into the OECD Guidelines; and it offers critiques of and suggestions for how the NCP system should be strengthened.

Keywords: globalization, multinational corporations, human rights, OECD Guidelines, UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights

JEL Classification: F02, K00, M00, N40