Questioning the Legitimacy of Corporate Codes of Conduct as Instruments to Regulate B2B Relations: A Precarious Balance Between States and Multinational Corporations

Abstract

In light of the new current global governance scenario where Multinational Corporations are seen as quasi-state entities able to replace governments in their role as public regulators, the paper questions the legitimacy of Corporate Codes of Conduct (CCOCs) as instruments to regulate business-to-business relations. Notably, the company-centric formation process, together with their strategic contractual and neo-colonialist instrumentalization, makes CCOCs capable of passing responsibility for societal issues to the lower tiers of their supply chains. Against this background, the thesis calls for the public regulator to retake their role as public power in charge of addressing societal and environmental global issues.

Keywords: Global governance, global societal concerns, Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Codes of Conduct, B2B relations, legitimacy, distributional effects, neocolonialism