Articles
Transnational corporations and human rights
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The elaboration of an ‘International Legally Binding Instrument on Transnational Corporations and other Business Enterprises with respect to Human Rights’ (hereinafter ‘the Instrument’), as mandated by the Human Rights Council at its 26th Ordinary Session (June 26, 2014), requires definitions about a multiplicity of issues. Many choices need to be made among possible policy options and properly reflected in treaty language.
This paper addresses one of such issues: the subjective scope of the Instrument, that is, whose conduct will be subject to the disciplines eventually incorporated therein.
Bleeding Syria: Fleeing of Syrian capital
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With the continuing bleeding of various Syrian economic sectors, the movement of Syrian funds abroad in search of safe havens is increasing, stopping the heart of development inside the country while ensuring the sustainable development of “downstream” countries.
The flight of local capital began with the first year of the revolution with a number estimated by the British magazine the Economist at about 20 billion dollars in 2011 alone.
What Apple teaches us about taxes
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APPLE got a big surprise last week when the European Commission ordered Ireland to collect more than $14 billion in back taxes from the company. The global giant had been attributing billions of dollars in profits to a phantom head office, allowing it to pay a tax rate of 1 percent or lower.
Both Apple and Ireland are appealing the decision, but the commission’s announcement was the latest sign that multinational corporations are running out of places to hide from paying taxes. The door is now open for Congress to fix our own corporate tax code, which has allowed the biggest multinationals to shirk their obligations for decades.
Bring back corruption: a critique of neoliberal anti-corruption rhetoric
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Nigeria is gripped by the familiar anxieties of an economy in distress. This escalating crisis has demystified a president once thought capable of astute, if not magical, economic management. In their desperation for respite, many Nigerians are now paradoxically yearning for the corruption that they and their leaders blame for their economic woes.
But theirs is not nostalgia for corruption per se but for a period in which, despite or because of corruption, the flow of illicit government funds created a sense of economic opportunity and prosperity. During a recent research trip to Nigeria I sampled the opinion of various segments of the Nigerian people to gauge their perspectives on the troubled economy of President Muhammadu Buhari, which just entered recession. One refrain I heard fairly regularly was “bring back corruption.” It is not an entirely new rhetoric. For months, Nigerians have been advancing this idiom on social media as a sarcastic rebuke of what they see as Buhari’s narrow, obsessive focus on corruption.
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The power of big pharma and the right of access to medecines
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Contradictory as it may seem, the big pharmaceutical companies give little priority to the human right to health, in spite of the fact that they play a strategic role in this context. Their main goal is profit, and as they work in an industry whose final clients are highly vulnerable people – those with illnesses – this gives them a much greater margin than in other industries to fix inflated prices. It is therefore up to States to establish the parametres for operation of these companies, with the public interest in mind and in order to guarantee the right to health.
Read more: The power of big pharma and the right of access to medecines
