Urgent need for binding obligations on Transnational Corporations raised at the UN http://www.tni.org/article/urgent-need-binding-obligations-transnational-corporations-raised-un

John Ruggie's proposed guidelines to the UN on Human Rights and Transnational Corporations fail to bring TNCs under any binding law, thefore enabling human rights and environmental crimes to continue with impunity.The need to address the lack of legal structure to enforce human R=rights obligations on TNCs was also addressed in the Judgment of the Permanent Peoples Tribunal (PPT) which examined 48 cases of human rights violations by European TNCs in Latin America during its Sessions in Vienna (2006), Lima (2008) and Madrid (2010).

The call of the PPT to the UN Human Rights Council came in response to the social movements and organisations from Latin America and Europe, in the network known as Enlazando Alternativas, which had exposed how voluntary codes of conduct, which form part of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) approach, have failed to tackle human rights and environmental violations of Transnational Corporations (TNCs). These movements denounce the current system, where the rights of TNCs are guaranteed by the judicial fortress of the Lex Mercatoria [trade and commercial law and treaties], but responsibilities and obligations are omitted, left to the good will of corporations.

[also read...The new transnational configuration of power http://alainet.org/active/19811&lang=es