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Asser Institute Lectures on International Law: Some Aspects of the Transnational Corporation in International Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 May 2009

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The scope and emotion of the discussion concerning transnational corporations suggest that some more basic problems are at its roots, such as the discrepancy between the legal equality and sovereignty of states and their actual inequality and dependence; the hegemony of the North and the distress of the South, the many-layered interdependence and the groping, but palpable, steps toward a new world economic order; the relationship between the state and the private economy in the home and the host states of transnational corporations; or the question whether private social power is bad per se and tends to corrupt, and whether the power of transnational corporations equals the sudden change from the quantity to the quality.

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Articles
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Copyright © T.M.C. Asser Press 1980

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References

2. Cf., UN Gen.Ass. Resolution 34/46 of 7 December 1979.

3. See the following definitions: Multinational Corporations in World Development, UN Doc. ST/ECA/190 (1973) 5: “… the term “multinational corporation” is used here in the broad sense to cover all enterprises which control assets – factories, mines, sales offices and the like – in two or more countries”; The Impact of Multinational Corporations on Development and on International Relations (Report of the Group of Eminent Persons), UN Doc. E/5500/Rev. 1 (1974) 25: “Multinational corporations are enterprises which own or control production or service facilities outside the country in which they are based.” And, generally, Transnational Corporations in World Development: A Re-Examination, UN Doc. E/C.10/38 (1978) 158–67.

4. Fischer, Peter, “Historic Aspects of International Concession Agreements”, Grotian Society Papers (1972) (ed. C.H. Alexandrowicz) 222–61.Google Scholar

5. Franko, Lawrence G., “Multinationals: The End of US Dominance”, 17 Atlantic Community Quarterly (1979) 184200.Google Scholar

6. Multinational Corporations in World Development, UN Doc. ST/ECA/190 (1973) 182–85.Google Scholar

7. Heenan, David A./Keegan, Warren J., “The Rise of Third World Multinationals”, 17 Atlantic Community Quarterly (1979) 108–21.Google Scholar

8. For example, EUROFIMA, EUROCHEMIC, Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS), Société internationale de la Moselle (SIM), or Arab Petroleum Investment Co.

9. Franko, Lawrence G., The European Multinationals (1976) 187212Google Scholar; Fröhlich, Friedrich Wilhelm, Multinationale Unternehmen (1974) 91125.Google Scholar

10. On the notion of “control”, see the arbitral award in Anaconda Co. and Chile Copper Co. v. Overseas Private Investment Corp., ILM 14 (1975) 1210, at 1227–28Google Scholar: “In general, ‘control’ as applied to corporate operations is an elusive term, dealing as it sometimes does with the degree of influence in fact or potentially exerted by some persons within a complex structure over a multitude of actions taken by many others. In differing legal contexts different aspects of that influence can assume greater or lesser importance; sometimes actually exercised present control is more important than potential but dormant control and sometimes the reverse is true.” And see the Swiss decisions on control in Wildhaber, Jörg Paul Müller/Luzius, Praxis des Völkerrechts (1977) 362–63.Google Scholar

11. Cf. n. 7.

12. Sunkel, Osvaldo, “Big Business and “Dependencia”: A Latin American View,” 50 Foreign Affairs (1971/1972) 517–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13. Examples may be found in the attitude of the European and American Oil companies vis-à-vis the Mossadegh government in Iran in 1953, of United Fruit Co. toward the Arbenz government in Guatemala in 1954, of Union Minière du Haut Katanga in the Congo in 1960, or of the ITT vis-à-vis President Allende in Chile in 1972–73.

14. Bertin, Gilles, “Sociétés multinationales, niveau de multinationalisation et indépendance nationale”, in: Les conditions de l'indépendance nationale dans le monde moderne, Acte du Colloque international tenu à l'Institut Charles-de-Gaulle en 1975 (1977) 263–82 at 277.Google Scholar

15. Nye, Joseph S. Jr., “Multinational Corporations in World Politics,” 55 Foreign Affairs (1974/1975) 153–75 at 170–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16. On recent developments see Asante, Samuel K.B., “Restructuring Transnational Mineral Agreements”, 73 AJIL (1979) 335–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wälde, Thomas W., “Revision of Transnational Investment Agreements: Contractual Flexibility in Natural Resources Development”, 10 Lawyer of the Americas (1978) 265–98.Google Scholar

17. Franko, (supra n. 9), 29, 120–25.Google Scholar

18. Nye, (supra n. 15) 171–72.Google Scholar

19. Asante, (supra n. 16) 368.Google Scholar

20. PCIJ Ser. A, Nos. 20/21 (1929), p. 41.

21. Cf. Böckstiegel, Karl-Heinz, Der Staat als Vertragspartner ausländischer Privatunternehmen (1971)Google Scholar; Jonathan, Gérard Cohen, Les concessions en droit international public (1966)Google Scholar; Fischer, Peter, Die internationale Konzession (1974)Google Scholar; Weil, Prosper, “Problèmes relatifs aux contrats passés entre un Etat et un particulier”, 128 RdC (1969 III) 95240.Google Scholar

22. Texaco Overseas Petroleum Co. and California Asiatic Oil Co. v. Libya, 104 JDI (1977) 350Google Scholar, 17 ILM (1978) 1. Comments by Bowett, D.W., “Libyan Nationalisation of American Oil Companies' Assets”, Cambridge Law Journal (1978) 5Google Scholar; Jonathan, Gérard Cohen, “L'arbitrage Texaco-Calasiatic c. Gouvernement Libyen”, AFDI (1977) 452Google Scholar; Fatouros, A.A., “International Law and the Internationalized Contract”, 74 AJIL (1980) 134CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gruss, Hans Jürgen, “Enteignung und Aufhebung von Erdölkonzessionen: Der Schiedsspruch im libyschen Erdölstreit”, 39 ZaöRV (1979) 782Google Scholar; Lalive, Jean-Flavien, “Un grand arbitrage pétrolier entre un Gouvernement et deux sociétés privées étrangères”, 104 JDI (1977) 319Google Scholar; Rigaux, François, “Des dieux et des héros. Reflexions sur une sentence arbitrale”, 67 RCDIPr (1978) 435Google Scholar; Verhoeven, Joe, “Droit international des contrats et droit des gens”, 14 RBDI (19781979) 209.Google Scholar

23. 17 ILM (1978) 1321. And see the arbitral awards referred to in Müller, /Wildhaber, (supra n. 10) 223–27.Google Scholar

24. ICJ Rep. (1970) 3.Google Scholar

25. I respectfully disagree with ProfRubin, Seymour J., “Multinational Enterprise and National Sovereignty: A Skeptic's Analysis”, 3 Law and Policy in International Business (1971) 141Google Scholar, when he says, from a perspective that is widely shared by American writers, “extraterritoriality is essentially a non-issue” (at 30).

26. Mann, F.A., Studies in International Law (1973) 39.Google Scholar

27. United States v. Aluminum Co. of America, 148 F. 2d 416 (2d Cir. 1945), at 443–44.Google Scholar

28. United States v. Watchmakers of Switzerland Information Center et al., 133 F.Supp. 40 (SDNY 1955)Google Scholar, 134 F.Supp. 710 (SDNY 1955), 168 F.Supp. 904 (SDNY 1958), 1963 Trade Cases para. 70.600 (SDNY 1962), 1965 Trade Cases para. 71.352 (SDNY 1964), summarized in Müller, /Wildhaber, (supra n. 10) 269–73Google Scholar, and in 6 Whiteman's Digest of International Law (1968) 127–33.Google Scholar

29. See the declaration and guidelines for multinational enterprises in 15 ILM (1976) 967–80; Blanpain, R., The Badger Case (1977)Google Scholar; Report of the OECD committee on international investment and multinational enterprises on the review of the 1976 declaration and decisions, 18 ILM (1979) 986–1024.

30. See the Formulations of the Chairman of the Ad Hoc Inter-Governmental Working Group on major principles and/or issues related to the activities of transnational corporations, UN Doc. E/C.10/AC.2/8 (1978).