Violation of Human Rights in Corporate Sector

Abstract

There have been made efforts to create an international legally binding instrument to hold transnational corporations (TNCs) accountable for human rights abuses have recently gained new momentum. In September 2013 Government of Ecuador delivered a statement on behalf 85 member states of the United Nations (UN) at the 24th session of the Human Rights Council (UNHRC) asking for legally binding framework to regulate the activities of transnational corporations and to provide protection, justice and remedies for the victims of human rights abuses. Nobel Prize laureate Joseph Stieglitz reinforced their call on a keynote address to the UN forum on Business and human rights in Geneva in December 2013 by asking Governments and the UN to move towards a binding international agreement enshrining the norms of the UN guiding principles of Business and Human Rights. These efforts are only the latest link in chain of initiatives at the UN to hold corporations accountable to the public. They started in the 1970s with the discussions about a Code of Conduct of Transnational Corporations and continued in the late 1990s with the attempt to adopt the UN Norms on the responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and other Business