“Think Globally, Punish Locally”: Nonstate Actors, Multinational Corporations, and Human Rights Sanctions

Abstract

The traditional realist paradigm holds that the sovereign nation-state is the principal political and legal unit in the world community. Reflecting this tradition, most studies of economic sanctions are state-centered. They assume that states exercise control over their national corporations to deny economic resources to other states. Within this framework, nongovernmental human rights organizations become involved only as interest groups, lobbying governments to regulate or ban private economic activity with designated malefactor. These groups, however, are generally unable to persuade states to mandate disinvestment from or socially responsible behavior within repressive regimes. As a result, they redirect their energies away from the central authorities and toward corporations-directly pressuring them through boycotts and shareholder activism-and local governments-persuading them to condition municipal contracts on human rights criteria.This essay examines the degree to which these nonstate actors can provide an alternative center of authority to that of the state in imposing human rights accountability on corporate conduct abroad. The first section explains the logic of nonstate sanctions and establishes criteria against which one can judge their challenge to realism. The second section assesses the successes and limitations of the anti-apartheid movement, which is viewed as the role model for such efforts. The third and final section contrasts the South African case with recent campaigns against corporate investment in Burma and Nigeria. These cases have been chosen because most grassroots organizations have pressed for corporate withdrawal rather than for more socially responsible business practices. Each represents an attempt by citizens' groups to impose sanctions against repressive regimes beyond those enacted by governments.

From Responsibility to Citizenship? Corporate accountability for development

“…Mittelman concludes (1998:865) 'this joint action within civil society put pressure on the Department of Water Affairs, which ordered Thor chemicals to suspend its operations'. Shareholder activism plays on the `hassle factor', by which part of a company's business which is of negligible overall va lue to its profits is targeted, but which nevertheless has a detrimental impact on the reputation of the company's other operations, providing it with a strong incentive to address the issues raised by activists (Rodman 1998;Marinetto 1998).…”

Business and Bludgeon at the Border: A transnational political economy of human displacement in Thailand and Burma

“…European Union sanctions have been limited to arms sales, nonhumanitarian aid, and trade preferences. Combined with the extensive campaign for human rights sanctions by nongovernmental actors, these efforts have contributed to Burma's appellation as the 'South Africa' of the 1990s' (Rodman, 1998).…”

“…In the early 1990s, the military government in Burma opened up its natural resources to foreign development. The US company, UN-OCAL, and the French Total struck a controversial $1.2 billion deal with Thai and Burmese state energy companies to construct a 260 mile pipeline from Burma to Thailand and to develop offshore natural gas fields (Rodman, 1998 (Rodman, 1998, p. 32). UNOCAL and Total maintain that the alleged violations are unrelated to their investment; they assert their right to continue working regardless of the political practices of the host country.…”

“…Burma's military-led government, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), formerly known as the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), has grown to rely on Thailand, both as a market for its natural resources and as a source of investment in Burma's historically closed economy (Rodman, 1998). This paper makes the argument that as transnational economic integration increases between Thailand and Burma, and within the region of Southeast Asia as a whole, the protection of Burmese refugees in Thailand becomes more negotiable.…”

Corporate accountability to the poor? Assessing the effectiveness of community-based strategies

“…Campaigns likely to be most successful are those targeted against areas of negligible value to the overall operations of the company, playing on the "hassle factor" so that the potential for reduced profits and damaged reputation in other, more important, markets makes the targeted operation a liability (Rodman 1998). …”