Litigation against Multinational Enterprises: Corporate Social Responsibility and its Challenges

Over the last two decades, a wave of private litigation has been raised about the activities and treatment of multinational enterprises. Much of this litigation has been initiated in their home countries, such as the US, UK and Australia; some has occurred in host countries against their subsidiary branches. With an emphasis on the practical and theoretical features, the present article studies and analyses some of the most relevant cases at the national level, identifies the important challenges facing litigation against these enterprises, and proposes some guidelines. Some of these challenges are the doctrine of the corporate veil, the piercing of the corporate veil, different perspectives about the theoretical basis of civil liability (such as control and negligence), third party omission, and the duty of care. Another challenge considered in the present article is the doctrine of forum non-convenience. Having analyzed some national judgments and judicial procedures, some solutions have been offered for these challenges. One solution is that developing countries should develop their own standards by reference to values underlying contemporary labour law, environmental law and human rights and should try to adopt common policies in this regard. Another solution is to develop stricter supervisory mechanisms to monitor the activities of multinational enterprises. Such supervision can be done through WTO and UN specialized organizations. At the national level, enacting anti-bribery laws and laws for compulsory transparency, reforming traditional corporate law and removal of jurisdiction barriers would also be vital.