Transnational Corporations and Protection of International Labor Rights: A Synthetic Regulatory Framework

Transnational corporations (TNCs) have gained enormous economical power in the past decades due to the elimination of trade barriers in the global market. Such power threatens the international labor rights enjoyed by laborers all over the world. However, international human rights law still only applies to states with few exceptions, and thus domestic law remains the major applicable law to TNCs. The problem comes from the various level of legal protection offered by different countries and the fluidity of TNCs’ capital, which enables TNCs to escape from any strict domestic regulations. This phenomenon makes it difficult to hold TNCs be responsible for the deviation of international labor rights law.any international organizations have attempted to solve this regulatory problem, but the progress remains at the initial stage. Efforts have been put to elaborating the international labor rights responsibilities of TNCs and coming up with different solutions. No comprehensive regulatory mechanism was successfully developed. This thesis focuses on the ILO core labor standards in order to construct a feasible mechanism since they are highly supported by the international community and are an appropriate start point.his thesis seeks four major regulatory measures as potential solutions, including trade measure, corporate social responsibility (CSR), civil liability and mandatory disclosure. After looking into their functions, advantages and limitations, this thesis finds it necessary to address this issue by different factual context with the combination of selected measures. And CSR is the only measure which applies to all circumstances. Accordingly, characteristics of TNCs are divided into consumption product industry and raw material industry. This thesis takes CSR as fundamental regulatory function and argues for an international minimum mandatory disclosure system to construct a “basic regulatory model,” which is designed for different kinds of TNCs.eanwhile, in dealing with certain unique factual context, this thesis bases on the “basic regulatory model,” combining with other tailored regulatory measures and further comes up with a “synthetic regulatory model” as a thorough regulatory mechanism. When TNCs violate jus cogen, for instances, civil liability system has its distinctive function for deterring the misconducts; when TNCs are complicit with a host government in labor rights abuses, trade sanctions should be resorted to for stronger regulation; when the policy of a host state hurdles the realization of labor right, trade benefits provide great incentives for improvements. Lastly, the “synthetic regulatory model” is applied to the core labor standards. This thesis argues that this model offers effective and feasible solutions to the derogation of international labor rights by TNCs and even encourages TNCs directly contributing to the realization of those labor standards.