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Africa's natural resources have been of interest to other areas of the world for centuries. During the nineteenth-century European colonization of Africa, raw materials such as rubber and diamonds were often extracted and exported by foreign businessmen and colonial governments. Today's transnational corporations (TNCs) continue the practice. This study explores the range of strategies for regulating the social and environmental practices of TNCs in Africa's extractive industries. While acknowledging the partial success of conventional regulatory strategies, Evaristus Oshionebo argues that the current power imbalance between TNCs and African host governments makes them impossible to enforce effectively. Rather than simply critiquing the existing systems, Oshionebo proposes that a pluralistic approach, involving government agencies, corporations, non-governmental organizations, and local community associations in the regulatory process, might provide better results in Africa. Innovative and daring, Regulating Transnational Corporations in Domestic and International Regimes offers new and practical solutions to old, entrenched problems.

This volume offers a systematic overview of the different tools through which the human rights accountability of transnational corporations may be improved. It first examines the responsibility of States in controlling transnational corporations, emphasizing both the limits imposed by the protection of the rights of investors under investment treaties and the potential of the US Alien Tort Claims Act and other similar extra-territorial legislations. It then turns to self-regulation by transnational corporations, through the use of codes of conduct or international framework agreements. It then discusses recent attempts at the global level to improve the human rights accountability of corporations by the direct imposition on corporations of obligations under international law. Finally, it considers the use of public procurement policies or of conditionalities in the lending policies of multilateral lending institutions in order to incentivize TNCs to behave ethically. Altogether, the book offers a rigorous legal analysis of these different developments and critically appraises their potential.

The control of multinational corporations is an area of law that has attracted immense attention both at national and international level. In recognition of the importance of the subject matter, the United Nations Secretary General has appointed a special representative to work in this area. The book discusses the current trend by MNCs to self regulate by employing voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy. Olufemi Amao argues that the CSR concept is insufficient to deal with externalities emanating from MNCs' operations, including human rights violations. Amao maintains that for CSR to be effective, the law must engage with the concept. In particular, he examines how the law can be employed to achieve this goal. While noting that the control of MNCs involves regulation at the international level, it is argued that more emphasis needs to be placed on possibilities at home, in States and host States where there are stronger bases for the control of corporations. This book will be useful to academic scholars, students, policy makers in developing countries, UN, UN Agencies, the African Union and its agencies, the European Union and its agencies and other international policy makers.

The major problem associated with the regulation of transnational mergers, which affect several national markets, is the allocation of jurisdiction. Each country concerned may wish to exert jurisdiction and apply its national competition law to regulate the anti-competitive effects a merger may have in its territory. However, this approach may lead to risks of inconsistent decisions regarding the legality of mergers. Indeed, the national competition laws applied by the regulating authorities may diverge in several aspects, which raise the likelihood of inconsistency. Therefore it is desirable to opt for regulatory approaches which are more sensitive to the transnational nature of mergers and which allow cooperation between competition authorities. A possible solution may be bilateral cooperation agreements through which two countries coordinate the enforcement activities of their national competition authorities. However, the benefits of these agreements are enjoyed only by the signatory parties. The sole reliance upon bilateral agreements does not appear to be the optimal regulatory approach towards transnational mergers.

Corporate social responsibility codes are guidelines that companies voluntarily develop and publish with the objective to show the public their commitment to respect human rights, to improve fundamental workplace standards worldwide and to not pollute the natural environment. These corporate codes have become a crucial element in the regulatory architecture for globally operating companies. By focusing on the characteristics of the codes, their effects on society, and their legal consequences, this book seeks to provide a comprehensive analysis of corporate codes and the law. Enforcing Corporate Social Responsibility Codes develops proposals on the relation between global corporate self-regulation and the national private law systems. It uses methods of comparative law and sociological jurisprudence to argue that national private law can, and in fact should, enforce these codes as genuine legal obligations. The author formulates legal policy recommendations for English and German private law which indicate how the proposed legal enforcement could be practically realised.

The increasing importance of CSR means that companies must consider multi-stakeholder interests as well as the social, political, economic, environmental and developmental impact of their actions. However, the pursuit of profits by multinational corporations has led to a series of questionable corporate actions and the consequences of such practices are particularly evident in developing countries. Adefolake Adeyeye explores how CSR has evolved to aid the anti-corruption campaign. By examining voluntary rules applicable for curbing corruption, particularly bribery and analysing the domestic and extra-territorial laws of Nigeria, United Kingdom and the United States for holding corporations liable for bribery, she assesses the adequacy of international law's approach towards corporate liability for bribery and explores direct corporate responsibility for international corruption. The roles of corporate governance, global governance and civil liability in curbing corporate corrupt practices are given special focus.

To whom are armed opposition groups and business corporations accountable for their actions in armed conflict and in peace times? Are they responsible as a group? This pioneer book offers innovative theoretical and empirical analyses to these questions.

In the 1990s and mid-2000s, turbulent political and social protests surrounded the issue of private sector involvement in providing urban water services in both the developed and developing world. Water on Tap explores examples of such conflicts in six national settings (France, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, South Africa and New Zealand), focusing on a central question: how were rights and regulation mobilized to address the demands of redistribution and recognition? Two modes of governance emerged: managed liberalization and participatory democracy, often in hybrid forms that complicated simple oppositions between public and private, commodity and human right. The case studies examine the effects of transnational and domestic regulatory frameworks shaping the provision of urban water services, bilateral investment treaties and the contributions of non-state actors such as transnational corporations, civil society organisations and social movement activists. The conceptual framework developed can be applied to a wide range of transnational governance contexts.

This book arises out of the second Anglo-German Law Conference in Oxford,held under the auspices of the Oxford Law Faculty and with the support of two leading law firms. The law regarding takeovers has recently taken on a new dimension in Europe, and nowhere more so than in England and Germany. These two jurisdictions have had to consider a number of issues, including the ramifications of the Vodafone/Mannesmann takeover, the proposed Takeover Act in Germany, and the impact of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 in England. This collection examines the law regarding takeovers in England and Germany, taking account of these new developments, among others. It also deals specifically with the issues arising from cross-border mergers between the two jurisdictions. This collection will be indispensable to practising lawyers and in-house counsel whose practice touches on Anglo-German business affairs. It will also be of real interest to legal academics in this field.

With the globalisation of markets, the phenomenon of market failure has also been globalised. Against the backdrop of the territoriality of nation state jurisdictions and the slow progress of international law based on the principle of sovereignty this poses a serious challenge. However while the legal infrastructure of globalised markets has a firm basis in formal national and international law, the side effects of economic transactions on public goods such as the environment, human health and consumer interests often escape state-based regulation.