• Multilateral regulation

Multilateral regulation

The study presents and compares two instruments which regulate the responsibility of business enterprises to respect human rights. The two instruments are:

• the 1977 ILO Tripartite Declaration on Principles concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy (amended in 2000) and
• the 2003 UN Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights by the subcommission of the then UN Commission on Human Rights.

The paper takes a comparative look at the UN Norms and the ILO Tripartite Declaration with a view to discussing their potential for further development. It also presents and discusses the positions of NGOs and labour unions on the UN Norms.

Findings of the paper include:

• the ILO standards can be seen as complementary to the work of the UN Human Rights Council on responsibility for human rights
• it seems unlikely that the ILO will be weakened by the UN Norms or by any comparable document
• there are no efforts being made within the ILO to establish binding human rights rules for business enterprises as this would go against the tripartite social-partnership approach on which the ILO is based
• there is little controversy among labour unions, ILO representatives, and NGOs when it comes to the substantive provisions of the UN Norms
• contention among labour unions, ILO representatives, and NGOs usually centres around points such as the level of accountability of businesses, who should be involved in the verification process, how to establish an effective verification mechanism and the need for liability and compensation.

The paper concludes that labour unions and NGOs to need to define joint aims and develop strategies with a view to strengthening corporate human rights responsibility and accountability.

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