Article
Interim report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises
...the Special Representative...takes as a premise that the objective of the mandate is to strengthen the promotion and protection of human rights in relation to transnational corporations and other business enterprises but that governments bear principal responsibility for the vindication of those rights... Three broad contextual factors frame the Special Representative’s analysis of the rapidly evolving business and human rights: the institutional features of globalization; overall patterns in alleged corporate abuses and their correlates; and the characteristic strengths and weaknesses of existing responses established to deal with human rights challenges... Today, the widening gap between global markets and the capacity of societies to manage their consequences may pressure political leaders to turn inward yet again... Embedding global markets in shared values and institutional practices is a far better alternative; contributing to that outcome is the broadest macro objective of this mandate. [refers to BP, Unocal (part of Chevron)]