THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE LAW WITH THE RSC

Abstract

The lack of visibility of trans-national corporations for Private International Law and national laws, can lead to a certain tampering or misuse of the law, in which the weak currency displaces the hard currency or, in other words, a context in which the soft law displaces the imperative rules (ius cogens) in key areas such as human, social and environmental rights, whose degree of application continues to be asymmetric within different countries of the international community (North/South divide).
In this context, we observe a progressively raised awareness among companies about the need to defend the economic and social rights of citizens, that paradoxically translates into a demand of less regulation and more self-regulation. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) constitutes a very well-known example of this trend towards less compulsory regulation and more self-regulation. Similarly, but from a more critical perspective, several observers stress that the above-mentioned trend is another example of a new global paradigm, the globalism, in which nation-states are “hostages” of the main financial institutions and trans-national corporations. This paradigm leads to an appropriation of International Law.
Regulations VS. self-regulation? We cannot obviate that one of the main risks associated to self-regulation, which is common to any private rule, is that it could lead to a wide dissemination of the self-service law or legal pic and choose; concepts that refer to the capacity of the main trans-national corporations to “legislate” and delimit the scope of their responsibility.