Regolazione internazionale e responsabilità globale delle imprese transnazionali

International Regulation and Global Responsibility of Transnational Corporations - In recent years and before the global financial crisis, international law has struggled to regulate the activity of transnational corporations since the latter have greatly expanded their capacity for action on a global scale. Despite numerous efforts by the International Community to agree on a hard law international legal framework, the soft law process has been the primary arena for the regulation of transnational corporations and human rights. In addition, host state control, home state control and international responsibility of directors and companies itself have so far remained the fundamental avenues through which issues of global corporate responsibility have been assessed. ‘Contractualisation’ of human rights has also been viewed as a further avenue to control the human rights impact of corporate activity. The UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises has generated an impressive stock of report capitalizing on issues well known in specialised international economic law literature. He is raising global awareness and institutionalizing new paradigms of understanding the complex relationship between business and human rights: a matter of vital importance for this century. The work of the UN Special Representative constitutes therefore a step forward towards an holistic approach of contemporary international law.