아프리카에서의 다국적기업의 사회적 책임(CSR)에 관한 국제법적 규율

초록

"With regard to the business practices, African countries share some common features, that is, violations of human rights such as child labor, forced labor, low income, environmental damage, and bribery or corruption. Some multinational corporations have tended to involve in this phenomenon and have been criticized not to fully carry out its duty to protect the human rights of their employees and people of rural communities. In this context, there has been emphasis on the establishment of corporate social responsibility(CSR) practices of these multinational corporations and arguments that these corporations should play a major role in promotion of human rights and execution of environmental and social programs and carrying out their certain functions. Every state bears its legal obligation to protect against human rights violations. It includes obligations with respect to the activities of corporations that can be attributed to the state and where those corporations (and/or their subsidiaries) operate in foreign countries. But under current international human rights law, corporations do not have any direct international legal duties. Corporations do not have the same legal obligations that states do in relation to the international human rights law and international investment law. It is true that almost all corporations operating in foreign countries have some type of CSR policies, usually dealing with social, environmental and human rights issues. Having a CSR policy is, however, not the same as providing protection for all human rights. Concerning the institutional arrangements, African states have common characteristics such as still emerging democracy, corruption, the faltering attempts to decentralize power and the barely re-established social state. These institutional elements hinder the effective execution of the CSR policies of multinational corporations in Africa. To improve or overcome these difficulties, a strong and impartial legal system is crucial to regulate the activities of the multinational corporations and their human rights abuses. The most important aspect of effective execution of the CSR policy of the multinational corporations is the imposition of the legal regulation, especially access to remedies in civil and criminal dimension, on the corporations."

키워드