Human Rights And Multinational Corporations: The United-Nations Policies And Companies’ Responsibilities To Protect Human Rights In Business

The purpose of this paper is to understand the role of the United Nations in safeguarding and guaranteeing human rights in the business world, as well as understanding the new social responsibility of companies further to the globalization. The media regularly report on the misconduct of multinational corporations, especially in developing countries. Globalization has strengthened the power of the big enterprises while exposing poor countries to it. The United Nations has established itself as a world leader and is working in order to resolve disputes effectively, through international legislation. The questions of the present research are: 1- What is the impact of international legislation and programs set up by the United Nations in guaranteeing human rights in business? 2. Do multinational corporations really work to implement and promote corporate social responsibility to comply with international law?The company's social responsibility programs, while having a social perspective, are in line with the companies' duties to ensure ethics. In the background of the research, the evolutionary process in the development of different frameworks has been analyzed and the debates and tensions before the codification of 2011 guiding principles have been shown. It also explains the various responsibilities of companies in the new text. The lack of legal authority of the United Nations against these companies renders its actions useless, and the impact of the guiding principles is clearly limited. Companies, in turn, use corporate social responsibility programs to have a better reputation. The ethical actions expressed by their leaders are not taken into account in practice. When companies are free to do business, they break the law; because governments are either incapable of enforcing the law or not doing so. Proposals for the United Nations are to find a way to gain legal authority over multinational corporations, as well as to identify the true subjects and fraudsters of its global compact. Companies should really use ethics as a fundamental principle and belief, not a goal. This will allow companies to regulate their rules and be subject to the less pressured by international regulations, as well as design business programs that pursue sustainable economic benefits while fully adhering to human rights in business.