United Nations Centre on Transnational Corporations

Corporate Conduct and the Public Interest

Khalil Hamdani, Lorraine Ruffing

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317528272
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The United Nations Centre on Transnational Corporations (UNCTC) was established in 1975 and abolished in 1992. It was an early effort by the UN to address the overlapping issues of national sovereignty, corporate responsibility and global governance. These issues have since multiplied and deepened with globalization. This book recounts the UNCTC experience and its lessons for international organizations.

This book is not only an insider perspective by two former staff but also a collective memoir of the UNCTC as an international organization that attempted with varying success to defuse the clash between corporates and states that erupted in the turbulent 1970s. This personal account of the UNCTC is a mixture of history, analysis, reflections, and critical commentaries, told in different voices that penetrate the bland persona of international civil service. In this retelling, the authors seek to address misconceptions amongst the more general literature and to seek to provide accounts of both its positive and negative features.

The UNCTC experience recounted in this book holds valuable lessons for international organization and will be of interest to student, scholars and practitioners alike.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Content
• List of reflections
• List of boxes
• List of contributors
• Abbreviations
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1. The United Nations Centre on Transnational Corporations
• 2. The transnational corporation: separating fact from fiction
• 3. Code of conduct: attempting an international regulatory framework
• 4. Transparency and disclosure: lifting the veil from corporate reporting
• 5. Activism and engagement: setting standards for corporate behavior
• 6. Country policies: maximizing the positive, minimizing the negative
• 7. Corporate conduct and the public interest
• Select bibliography
• Index
• Routledge Global Institutions Series