Aguirre: Corporate Liability for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Revi ESSAY CORPORATE LIABILITY FOR ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS REVISITED: THE FAILURE OF INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION DANIEL AGUIRRE* INTRODUCTION Corporate human rights responsibility has become central to global governance. My 2004 article, Multinational Corporationsand the Realisation of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,' addressed the gap in international human rights law between the growth in corporate power and the erosion of state regulatory sovereignty. It asserted that corporate control over government policy meant that transnational corporations (TNCs) 2 as well as states must be held * Dr. Daniel Aguirre is a lecturer in International Law and Human Rights at Webster's Graduate School, Regent's College London. He may be contacted at
[email protected]. 1. Daniel Aguirre, Multinational Corporations and the Realisation of Economic, Social and CulturalRights, 35 CAL. W. INT'L L.J. 53 (2004) [hereinafter Aguirre, MultinationalCorporations]. 2. This essay will use the term "transnational corporation" (TNC) to define "an economic entity operating in more than one country, or a cluster of economic entities operating in two or more countries - whatever their legal form, whether in their home country or country of activity, and whether taken individually or collectively." U.N. Comm. on Human Rights, Sub-Comm. On the Promotion & Prot. of Human Rights, Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporationsand Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights, 55th Sess., Agenda Item 4, 1 20, U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/2003/12/Rev.2 (Aug. 26, 2003) [hereinafter U.N. Norms]. TNC is the term used by the United Nations Special Representative to refer to all corporate business activity.