Childtime corporate office michigan: Access to this page has been denied.

Giants World Series 2012

Hartmann Studios organized a parade to celebrate the victory of the San Francisco Giants in the Major League Baseball World Series, one of the most important national celebrations in the United States.

HARGROVE

The company was founded by Mr. Earl Hargrove after World War II. Together with their son Earl Hagrove, Jr., they are pioneers in the event industry, bringing many innovations and changes to the event organization process. After the company organized the inauguration ceremony of President Harry Truman in 1949, it firmly established itself on the event-Olympus and has not left it until now.

Barack Obama inauguration ceremony (2012)

According to organizers, between 600,000 and 800,000 people watched the inauguration ceremony for the 44th President of the United States, located on the National Mall adjacent to Capitol Hill. The most surprising of this ceremony was the beautiful performance of the US anthem by Beyoncé herself!

TBA Global

Annual income from events, $ : 50,000,000
Number of events in 2012: 2500013 Website: tbaglobal.com
Facebook: facebook.com/tbaglobal

TBA Entertainment Corporation was founded in 1994 in California and renamed TBA Global in 2004. Additional offices also exist in the UK and Canada. Specializes in marketing communications. The company is engaged in corporate events, as well as a wide range of meetings, conferences, intensives and other types of event marketing.

For the second year in a row, the agency has been preparing for the Google Doodle 4 awards ceremony, which recognizes the children who create the best Google logo. Every year, Google comes up with a theme and the kids submit their work to the competition. This time the theme was “The best day in history”. TBA surprised the guests of the event with an interactive screen with dolls and a life-size Android robot.

No.	Company name	Number of events in 2012	Annual income from events, $
11	InVision Communications	160	43 200 000
12	Filmmaster Group	22	38,000,000
13	Input Group	200	35,000,000
14	UNIPLAN	250	33 400 000
15	Switch	164	30 200 000
16	JNR Corp.	50+	30,000,000
17	InVNT	158	30,000,000
18	AgencyEA	90	25,000,000
19	Global Events	152	22 000 000
20	Enterprise Events Group	60	22 000 000
21	JHE Production Group	50	20,000,000
22	XA: Experiental Agency	210	18 000 000
23	Luminous	41	17 900 000
24	Event Makers	75	17,000,000
25	Go West Creative	65	16,000,000
26	Automotive Marketing Events	75	15 500 000
27	Pulse220	100	15,000,000
28	Broadstreet	25	15,000,000
29	Corporate Magic	17	14 500 000
30	Party Planners West	25+	14 000 000
31	Tamar Productions	92	13 500 000
32	Barkley Kalpak Agency	50	13,000,000
33	MGM Resorts Events	1000	12 500 000
34	Sequoia Productions	25-40	12-21 000 000
35	Henry’v Events	100+	12 000 000
36	River City Hospitality	31	11 250 000
37	CMS Communications	121	10 500 000
38	VWV Group	50-75	10-16 000 000
39	SportsMark Management Group	60	10-16 000 000
40	Paulette Wolf Events & Entertainment	75-100	10,000,000
41	Live Marketing	25-50	10,000,000
42	Grand Central Marketing	400	10,000,000
43	Extraordinary Events	40	10-13 000 000
44	Bucom International	25-30	10,000,000
45	POP Kollaborative	45	00
46	Feats INC	126	9-11 600 000
47	AWESTRUCK Marketing Group	100+	9-11 000 000
48	Pacific Events/Entertainment	625	8 100 000
49	EventWorks	150	7 750 000
50	Driver Productions	35	6 200 000

Like this article?! Tell your friends – it is useful for them, we are pleased 🙂

Corporate values ​​

0

Among the many modern awards in the field of architecture and design, Best Office Awards has occupied perhaps the narrowest niche at the intersection of architecture and business. Several awards with a similar ideology, however, already exist – suffice it to recall the Building Awards or the Commercial Real Estate Awards – but the new award, unlike them, has set itself the task of not the best objects in the field of commercial real estate in general, but only the best interiors of offices and business centers. In addition, the organizers of the Best Office Awards – the educational project ProjectNEXT and the OfficeNEXT portal – position it as a platform for discussions and mutual learning of all professionals involved in the field of corporate interior design, namely developers, architects, designers, suppliers of goods and services, owners and CEOs. companies.

All Best Office Awards events – the Office Event conference, an exhibition of promising novelties for the Office Trend Show and the actual award ceremony – were held in the still unfinished business center of the City of Capitals complex in the Moscow City International Business Center, which, despite ongoing finishing work, is already actively settled by restaurants, shops and galleries. A stage was built in the middle of the atrium, and above it was placed an installation on the theme of the tower of the Third International by Vladimir Tatlin. The avant-garde theme, designed to symbolize the most advanced in the field of office design, was continued on the second floor by the spectacular exposition of the Belgian artist Arne Quinza, for whom Tatlin, in his own words, is the main source of inspiration in his work.

The Best Office Awards 2010 Grand Prix was awarded to the interior project of the Razvitie-Stolitsa Bank in Pozharsky Lane in Moscow. This object, created by the architectural bureau Anna Kurbatova Architects, is already quite well known to the professional press – last year it became a laureate of the Under the Roof of the House festival. It must be said that since objects realized over the past three years could participate in the competition, there were a lot of well-known works among the nominees. For example, the St. Petersburg office of the Yandex company, created by the za_bor bureau, or the Capital Group office, made by the Massimo Iosa Ghini bureau and occupying, by the way, the top three floors in the Capital City. The jury singled out the interiors of Anna Kurbatova, first of all, for softness, lyricism and comfort. The architect really did not create the most traditional corporate office – the diffused light, the corian sculptural pillars that look like yacht prows, the ceiling panels repeating the lines of the sail are more reminiscent of the interiors of a hotel in some romantic resort. But according to Anna Kurbatova, this is exactly what a bank of the 21st century should be like – a minimum of office paraphernalia, a maximum of space and comfort.

In addition to the Grand Prix, the founders of the award presented several special prizes. Thus, the authors of the office of the consulting company PricewaterhouseCoopers in the White Square business center, whose interiors are distinguished not only by style, but also by the widespread use of energy-efficient technologies, received the award for New Technologies. Two prizes were awarded for this interior: one to the authors of the interior solution itself, architects of Murray O’Laoire Architects; the second – to the specialists of the Tochka Opory company, who developed a special lighting control system that operates on all 15 floors and saves energy consumption using motion and light sensors.

The nomination “Comfort and Ergonomics” was awarded to the Moscow office of Nokia, located in the renovated Voentorg building. Finnish architects from the Gullsten-Inkinen Design & Architecture bureau tried to level the hierarchy of employees and placed the jobs of all 110 people in a single open space. Traditionally, Nokia decorates all its offices in a single corporate style, but for Moscow, the Finns made an exception and accentuated the local flavor in the interior, hanging, for example, lamps in the form of church domes.

The atrium of the business center “Linkor” in St. Petersburg, created by the architects of “Studio 44”, became the best interior of the business center. The complex consists of two buildings, which are connected by an atrium 25 meters high. In order to get away from the banal glazing of the space between the two buildings, the architects slightly “pulled” them to each other so that the sloping walls began to resemble a moored ship. Under the transparent ceiling, on long cables, lamps are placed that look like boats carved from wood, and a narrow white staircase leads to the upper level, which one would like to compare with a ladder. The authors of the interiors of “Linkor”, the designers of Briz-studio, were also awarded a prize.

The Vision Care InstituteTM, a professional education center for vision correction specialists, developed by Sergey Estrin’s workshop, was recognized as the best lighting design project. The “Organization of Space” was awarded to NB Studio, which created an office for the Yota company, filled with a variety of unusual and sometimes ironic elements.

Two awards were presented in each Best Office Awards 2010 nomination. “The success of the entire project depends on how enlightened and open to new things the customer is,” the organizers of the award are convinced. “That’s why we have two main prizes – one goes to the team of architects, and the other goes to the client’s representative.” And it is hard to disagree with such logic – the award for the best office interior would not have taken place if there were no orders for corporate interiors. However, it seems that the offices of large foreign and Russian companies are one of the few architectural genres that the economic crisis has not affected in any way. And this means that the new award has a great future.

Below we publish the full list of awardees:

Nomination – “NEW TECHNOLOGIES”.

PricewaterhouseCoopers office design by Murray O’Laoire Architects. Architect Vuk Vukovich-Sarap. Lighting control system design – company « Support point »

Nomination: “LIGHT DESIGN”.

Office project The Vision Care Institute TM (Johnson & Johnson), Sergey Estrin Architectural Studio

COMFORT AND ERGONOMICS nominations

Nokia office project, Gullsten-Inkinen Design&Architecture.

Nominations “Organization of Space”

Office project Yota, Architectural Bureau NB Studio

CONGRACTION “BRAND AND IMAGE”

Office LIGHT & Design, Architectural Bureau UNK Project

9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000

Interior concept Atrium project for the Bank of Moscow / A. S. Architectural Bureau +

Nomination for the best interior of a business center
Design of the Linkor Business Center (St. Petersburg), Architectural Studio “Studio 44”, design studio BRIZ-studio

Grand Prix
Capital” Architectural bureau ANNA KURBATOVA ARCHITECTS

Special prizes from media partners.

AD Magazine
Awarded by UNK project bureau, Light&Design projects, Hewlett-Packard

Tatlin magazine.
Awarded by the NefaResearch architectural bureau for the Saatchi&Saatchi project

Frame Magazine
Awarded by BDGworkfutures Russia & CIS (Aurora Group) for the concept of the STS TV channel office

Spears Magazine
Lanektor Architect. Kit-finance office project.

YOTA office in Moscow

Bank “Development-Capital”. Grand Prix

Office Yandex

Office Capital Group

PricewaterhouseCoopers office

Atrium Business Center “Linkor”

Office of The Vision Care InstituteTM.

NOKIA office in Moscow

Arne Quinza Exposition

Arne Quinza Exposition

Architect Artem Spiridonov, Kapodaki design studio. Special prize of the organizers of the ProjectNEXT competition for WWF Russia

Architect Arseniy Leonovich, arch. bureau Panacom. Special prize from the organizers of the ProjectNEXT competition for Manamana for the best lamp

Arch. bureau Archduet. Participant of the ProjectNEXT competition for Flakon Design Factory

Aristova0003

UDC 341.23

LEGAL REGULATION OF THE LIABILITY OF CROSS-BORDER CORPORATE GROUPS BY NORMS OF PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL LAW

Е.

А. Aristova

Postgraduate student of the Department of International Law

Russian Academy of Justice

117418, Moscow, Novocheremushkinskaya st., 69 a

E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You must have JavaScript enabled to view.

The problem of regulating the responsibility of cross-border corporate groups for violations of human and civil rights and freedoms by the norms of international public law is analyzed. The possibility of applying international treaties to non-state subjects of law, the concept of jus cogens and its extension to legal entities, as well as the regulation of corporations through codes of conduct developed by intergovernmental organizations are considered.

Key words: cross-border corporate groups; human rights and freedoms; international treaties; codes of conduct; intergovernmental organizations

In the past few decades, violations of human rights and freedoms by cross-border corporate groups in host states have become regular. The destruction of indigenous communities by Royal Dutch Shell and Unocal in Nigeria and Burma, the use of child labor and flagrant violations of working conditions at the Asian factories Hess, Esprit, Nike, Coca-Cola, Nestle, Disney, Levi Strauss. Corporations often criticize government environmental protection measures as trade barriers to the transnationalization of manufacturing. Texaco in Ecuador and Peru, Freeport-McMaren and Rio Tinto in Indonesia, Shell in Nigeria have been accused of using environmentally destructive practices.

International human rights law does not impose direct obligations on legal entities. The concept of state centrism dominates, according to which international law is understood as a regulator of exclusively interstate relations. Thus, in the event that violations are caused by the abuse of private individuals, the state remains the sole bearer of obligations to ensure human rights and freedoms through the implementation of the norms of international treaty and customary law within national jurisdiction.

International law covers the activities of non-state actors through the indirect responsibility of states. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966 and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966, ratified by most of the world’s states, impose obligations on states to regulate the activities of all individuals, including cross-border corporate groups, within their jurisdiction to defend the principles they enunciate. According to the latter State’s preamble, the members that have acceded to the Covenant recognize that “the ideal of a free human being can only be realized if conditions are created under which everyone can enjoy his economic, social and cultural rights, as well as their civil and political rights” [4]. Maastricht Guidelines on Violations of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 1997, §18 also provides that “the duty to protect rights includes the duty of the state to ensure that private entities and persons, including transnational corporations, under its jurisdiction, do not deprive individuals of their economic, social and cultural rights” [3]. According to sub. b. clause 2. Art. 2 of the 1974 Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of the State, the state must “regulate and control the activities of transnational corporations within the limits of its national jurisdiction and take measures to ensure that such activities do not contravene its laws, rules and regulations and are consistent with its economic and social politics” [10].

Judicial practice also confirms the above thesis. For example, in the decision on the case of Velasquez Rodriguez (Velasquez Rodriguez case), the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that the realization by a person of his rights and freedoms directly depends on the duty of the state to prevent crimes [35]. The court also proclaimed the duty of the state apparatus to function in such a way that any crimes of private individuals are stopped and the offenders are punished. The European Court of Human Rights also established the obligation of states to prevent crimes committed by private individuals [29, c. 42].

Based on the foregoing, specialists studying the problems of responsibility of cross-border corporate groups prove that the state is indirectly responsible for the actions of individuals within its jurisdiction [11, p. 65–70; 34, p. 934–940]. Nevertheless, there are opponents of the theory of “solid” or “indirect” liability. For example, the former President of the International Court of Justice, Eduardo Arechaga, convincingly shows that the state is responsible for its own inaction, because it does not take adequate measures to ensure the protection of its own and foreign citizens, prevent crime and punish those responsible. In other words, the responsibility of the state arises not on the basis of the commission of a crime by a private person, but as a result of failure to comply with “an international obligation to take … reasonable measures to prevent a crime” [1, p. 428–429]. In the doctrine of international law, the theory is known as the principle of “due diligence” of the state (the principle of due diligence) or the obligation of the state to “due diligence”.

However, in many developing countries, the legal mechanism for bringing cross-border corporate groups to justice is ineffective. Of interest in this regard is the conflict involving the Anglo-Dutch oil corporation Royal Dutch Shell, the government of Nigeria and the indigenous people of Ogoni. As a result, the failure of the Nigerian government to protect the interests of the population from environmental violations by the oil giant and the misuse of natural resources became the subject of consideration by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights [12]. The plaintiff’s Center for Economic and Social Rights charged the Nigerian government with discrimination against indigenous peoples, violation of the right to property, health, family and freedom to dispose of one’s own wealth and resources, as well as the right to combat environmental degradation that harms the health of the Ogonians and the connivance and connivance of human rights violations by the Nigerian armed forces against the Ogonians.

It should be noted that the current international treaties in the field of human and civil rights and freedoms do not provide for a mechanism of action in the event that an offense is committed by a non-state actor, despite the fact that the state has duly fulfilled its obligations. Responsibility is assigned to the state only when the actions of its bodies lie outside the “due diligence” principle.

In this regard, researchers of the problem put forward theories about the application of international human rights law directly to private actors. For example, most articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 establish the rights and freedoms (hereinafter referred to as the Declaration) of all members of society without specifying specific subjects of law with corresponding duties. Thus, the preamble of the Declaration proclaims human rights as “a task to which all peoples and all states should strive, so that every person and every organ of society . .. strives through enlightenment and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms …” [2] . The preambular rule was interpreted by Louis Henkin as excluding “no one, no company, no market, no virtual space” [22, p. 17]. Article 1 of the Declaration recognizes that part of the precepts should apply to private relations: “all people … should act towards each other in a spirit of brotherhood.” Moreover, Article 28 of the Declaration, while stating that “everyone has the right to a social and international order in which rights and freedoms … can be fully realized”, does not contain an indication of retaliatory state actions. The existence of duties of private, non-state subjects of international legal relations also follows from the meaning of Art. 29Declaration: “Everyone … has a duty to society …” Finally, Article 30 declares that “nothing in this Declaration shall be construed as conferring on any State, group or individual the right to engage in any activity or act directed towards to the destruction of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration. ”

This led to the conclusion that not only states, but also individuals have obligations to protect human rights and freedoms [11, p. 71; 31, p. 53; 36, p. 62]. But even on the basis of such an interpretation, the nature of the duties of individuals is not clear. Despite the fact that at the time of signing at 1948 AD The Declaration was regarded as a non-binding document of soft law, a number of articles reached the status of customary international law. However, according to David Kinley, it remains debatable whether Art. 29 and 30 [27, p. 949]. In the absence of legal obligations, cross-border corporate groups have only an ethical or moral obligation to respect the fundamental human rights contained in the Declaration. Thus, among the sources of international law, the Declaration may be “the most fragile foundation” for building a doctrine of international responsibility of cross-border corporate groups [14, p. 409].

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights also contain rules on the recognition of the duties of individuals. Article 5 of both instruments states that “nothing in the present Covenant shall be construed to mean that any State, any group or any person is entitled to engage in any activity or perform any actions aimed at the destruction of any rights or freedoms…” [4; 5]. Similar conclusions about the obligations of individuals can be drawn from the analysis of regional agreements.

Meanwhile, international treaties are concluded by states, and on the basis of these treaties, states assume obligations to provide individuals under their jurisdiction with appropriate rights and freedoms. If a state party fails to fulfill these obligations, then other states parties to the treaty have the right to make claims regarding the violation of these obligations. It should be remembered that these international treaties were never designed directly for legal entities, especially for cross-border corporate groups, and for other non-state actors, and therefore do not provide for a mechanism for holding them accountable if they are unable to fulfill their obligations.

It is a widely held belief that cross-border corporate groups are internationally responsible for some of the most dangerous criminal offences. The basis of this approach is the concept of jus cogens – the principles of international law, recognized as peremptory norms of customary law, deviation from which is unacceptable [15, p. 488-490]. The norms of jus cogens originally formulated by the UN International Law Commission included such as the prohibition of aggressive war, genocide, the slave trade and piracy. The list was subsequently supplemented by the rejection of racial discrimination, the principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources and the principle of self-determination. An analysis of research by scientists and the UN on this issue shows that disputes over the inclusion of certain norms in the list of jus cogens are still ongoing. At the same time, the discussion of the principles of jus cogens within the UN and among specialists is carried out in relation to states, and no international liability of legal entities in the forms that are applicable to states and other subjects of international law does not exist and cannot exist. Steven Ratner, professor at the University of Michigan Law, notes that international law already recognizes the obligations of entities other than the state to be responsible for war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity, torture, and the use of slave labor [32, p. 466-468]. He further believes that the only reason why international law has so far focused on State responsibility is the reluctance of governments to endow corporate groups with the capacity to bear international responsibility. Professor of law at the University of Houston Jordan Post (Jordan Paust) in confirmation of the concept analyzes the extensive jurisprudence of the United States of holding legal entities and non-governmental organizations accountable for committing international crimes [30, p. 803]. It should be noted that the court cases cited mostly concern national legal entities, and not cross-border corporate groups.

Interstate and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have attempted to address the problem of abuse by cross-border corporate groups through the development of codes of corporate conduct. A feature of such documents is their advisory nature, which allows them to be classified as sources of soft law. As a result, corporations for failure to fulfill their obligations can so far be called to account only before the court of public opinion.

Researchers classify codes of conduct for cross-border corporate groups according to the entity that developed the code [20, p. 201–202; 16, p. 670]. The first group of codes initiated within the framework of interstate organizations is called governmental, international or universal codes. A typical feature of such legal instruments is that they are directed not at corporations directly, but at states whose task it is to apply them to cross-border corporate groups within their jurisdiction. At the same time, they do not bind the states that have signed them with binding norms. The second, most numerous, group includes codes developed within the framework of NGOs. Both classifications are external codes of conduct. The final group of codes are private internal codes of conduct used to create a positive public image.

A key feature common to all codes of conduct is their voluntary nature. The application of the rules of the codes is solely at the discretion of the cross-border corporate group. Auditors’ monitoring of corporations and regular reports are the only possible ways to control the application of codes. While some corporations use the services of external auditors to monitor the implementation of internal codes, international organizations rely solely on the initiative and capabilities of non-governmental human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International without allocation by the latter of resources for the performance of duties [23].

The documents developed within the framework of the UN, the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have the greatest value among the considered soft law instruments. While noting that they have had little success in practice, due in large part to their voluntary, non-binding nature and lack of effective enforcement mechanisms, let’s take a closer look at them.

The draft UNTCC Code of Conduct was historically the first significant attempt to strike a balance between the cross-border activities of corporations and fundamental standards of human rights and freedoms. According to the numerous requirements of developing countries in the mid-70s. The UN decided that it was necessary to develop a universal code of conduct for corporate groups that would regulate their activities. At 19In 1974, the UN Center and the UN Commission on TNCs were established. These bodies were tasked with developing a code, the purpose of which was to ensure effective control over the activities of corporate groups at the international level, to stop and subsequently prevent any violations of civil, political, social and cultural human rights and freedoms in the host states, to hold companies accountable for the identified abuses and ensuring the restoration of the violated rights of the victims. At 19In 1990, work on the code was completed, and the draft was submitted by the Commission for consideration to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations (hereinafter referred to as ECOSOC).

The 1990 version code declared that corporations must respect the human rights and fundamental freedoms, social and cultural objectives, values ​​and traditions of the countries in which they operate. Corporations were prohibited from discriminating against workers on the basis of race, sex, religion, language, social, national and ethnic origin, political or other beliefs. However, the code not only did not go beyond general declarative language, but also did not oblige host governments to adhere to strict rules regarding the confiscation of company property, intellectual property and the repatriation of profits. In the absence of funding and growing US opposition, negotiations stalled at 1992, and the code was never adopted [19, p. 167].

On January 31, 1999, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan initiated the development of the UN Global Compact at the World Economic Forum [37]. Work on the document began on July 26, 2000. The Global Compact contains nine principles of action based on the Declaration, the 1998 ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, and the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. June 24 In 2004, the tenth principle, the prohibition of anti-corruption activities, was included in the text of the Global Agreement.

During the development of the document, it was repeatedly emphasized that the Global Compact is not a tool to regulate or control the actions of affiliated corporations. The developers set themselves the goals to interest corporate groups in the application of the principles contained in it in practice and to create an effective basis for the exchange of experience. Such a peculiar status has made it possible to call the Global Agreement a purely formal document. Indeed, the affiliated corporations do not assume any legal obligations, and often use the initiative of the former UN Secretary General as a way to achieve the status of a public company in the eyes of the public by publishing photos of top managers with Kofi Annan in the press [18]. Kofi Annan himself does not see the Global Compact as a set of instructions or as a code of conduct, but as “a forum for dialogue in which companies engage in mutual study and exchange information on best business practices” [28].

In June 1976, OECD member states signed the Declaration on International Investment and Multinational Enterprises, which included the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (hereinafter referred to as the OECD Guidelines), revised in 2000 and 2011, which are voluntary for performance [8].

The first edition of the OECD Guidelines did not directly extend its effect to the protection and promotion of human rights in the activities of cross-border corporate groups, although it mentioned the right of workers to form trade unions and prohibited any discriminatory practices [26, p. 520]. The latest revision of the Guiding Principles, however, added norms for the protection of human rights as a response to the recommendations of some states and NGOs. The OECD Code recognizes the right of workers to enter into collective agreements and requires employers to provide the necessary conditions to allow unions to participate in any significant joint employee-employer consultations, and requires corporations to provide unions with financial and strategic information so that they can obtain a true and impartial view about the activities of the enterprise. The code further prohibits discrimination in employment, requires corporations to provide early warning of cutbacks and work with unions to “soften” the effects of cuts.

While the OECD Code does not provide for investigations to identify violations of human rights and freedoms in the activities of cross-border corporate groups, it does provide a complaints procedure that may lead to clarifications of the Guiding Principles. A unique feature of the OECD Code is the system of National Contact Points, which are government agencies in member states of the Code and, among other functions, deal with complaints from individuals, legal entities, and organizations about non-compliance by companies with the Guidelines. However, since this document applies only to OECD countries, most of which already have strong trade union movements and relatively consistent implementation of labor laws, this practice cannot help solve the problem of respect for human rights by corporate groups in developing countries that are not members of the organization [13, c. 421].

The ILO has also invited cross-border corporate groups to build relationships with workers on the basis of a voluntary code of conduct – the Tripartite Declaration of Principles Concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy (hereinafter referred to as the ILO Declaration) [9].

The ILO Declaration has a wider scope than the OECD Guidelines or the UN Global Compact and covers issues such as job creation, investment in the local economy, regulation of subcontractors and contractors, etc. The ILO Declaration also provides for a more detailed procedure for filing complaints with the Permanent Commission on Multinational Enterprises, which is empowered to investigate and detect violations of the document by individual companies, and to clarify the rules of the ILO Declaration in administrative proceedings. However, like the OECD Code, the ILO Declaration does not provide for sanctions for non-compliance with its provisions. The application of the ILO Declaration is based on the speeches of ILO officials and public censure of cross-border corporate groups in the media, rather than on the mechanism of enforcement of the norms of the code [16, p. 670].

Both the OECD National Contact Points and the ILO Commission are not judicial or quasi-judicial bodies. Their powers are limited to the clarification and interpretation of the codes. The weak application of the OECD Guiding Principles and the ILO Declaration points to the absence of a general and consistent state practice that would enable interstate codes of conduct to achieve the status of customary international law. Thus, while external codes of conduct may subsequently be developed into a tool of firm binding law, they do not presently represent a reliable source of international obligations for cross-border corporate groups.

Despite the fact that efforts to create a Code of Conduct for TNCs were unsuccessful, the UN continued to develop the issue of corporate social responsibility in various forms. In 1999, the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms established a working group on the working methods and activities of TNCs to study the impact of the activities of TNCs on the exercise of civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights and freedoms. As a result, the Draft Norms Concerning the Responsibilities of TNCs and Other Enterprises in the Field of Human Rights (hereinafter referred to as the UN Norms), as well as a commentary to it, were developed [7]. On August 13, 2003, the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms unanimously approved the Draft UN Standards and sent the document for further consideration to the UN Commission on Human Rights. The Commission did not approve the Standards in their original version, emphasizing that the document should not be considered binding on the part of corporations.

In general, the document contains several significant novelties compared to similar legal instruments discussed above. The fundamental difference lies in the change in traditional approaches to corporate social responsibility. First, the scope of the UN Norms is not limited to the protection of labor rights and the formulation of environmental standards for the activities of corporate groups, which is typical for the ILO Declaration and the OECD Guidelines. On the contrary, the document formulates a comprehensive list of human rights and freedoms for which corporations are held liable. The general obligation to respect international human rights is provided by the rule of paragraph 23, which states that such rights are understood to mean all civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights.

Secondly, the preamble of the UN Rules refers to the universally recognized obligations and norms contained in the UN Charter, the International Bill of Human Rights, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, international and regional agreements in the field of protection of human rights and freedoms. This made it possible to argue that the UN Norms are “a consolidation of the already existing international human rights law that should apply to corporations” [17, p. 498].

Thirdly, the scope of the UN Regulations is not limited to cross-border corporate groups, but also covers other enterprises, which, according to the document, include contractors, subcontractors, suppliers, patent holders. Thus, corporate groups are required to ensure that their contractors and suppliers comply with international standards of human rights and freedoms in their activities. It is known, for example, that Coca-Cola actively cooperated with the bottle manufacturing plant, knowing about the use of child forced labor at the enterprise [24]. The Gap Corporation was severely criticized after it became aware of gross violations of working conditions at the enterprises of one of its suppliers [25].

Fourth, the UN Standards have changed the traditional conventional approach from “should” to “shall”. The terminological differences when comparing the UN Norms with the ILO Declaration and the OECD Guidelines are obvious. The latter contain the wording “should try”, “should pursue as a goal”, “should take into account”, etc. in relation to the obligations of corporate groups. The UN norms, in turn, contain such terms as “obliged”, “responsible for”, “provide”, etc.

Finally, the UN Regulations offer an effective mechanism for monitoring compliance with the obligations of cross-border corporate groups. The novelty is the very attempt to put the activities of corporations under the control of such an influential international organization as the UN. In addition to the duty of states to “establish and strengthen the necessary legal and administrative framework to ensure that corporations implement the Norms” (paragraph 17), the document introduces a system of transparent and independent monitoring of the activities of companies. Such a short story is; a) a significant departure from the traditional understanding of international responsibility, in which human rights obligations are placed exclusively on states; b) favorably distinguishes the UN Standards from the voluntary recommendations of the ILO and OECD, which do not provide for an implementation mechanism. Thus, the unique characteristics of the UN Regulations demonstrate a qualitatively new level in establishing the responsibility of cross-border corporate groups.

Despite the significant contribution that the UN Standards can make in establishing the responsibility of cross-border corporate groups at the international level, they also have shortcomings that have yet to be overcome in the course of further discussions at the UN: 1) despite the proclamation of the universality of human rights and freedoms, it should be taken into account that corporations operate in countries with different levels of development. Therefore, wages in the amount “sufficient to maintain an adequate standard of living” (paragraph 8) will vary in the European Union and developing countries; 2) UN standards should clearly fix how responsibility will be distributed between the parent corporation, subsidiaries and dependent legal entities, suppliers, subcontractors and counterparties.

Due to active lobbying of the interests of the business community, work on a universal code of conduct within the UN has been temporarily suspended. At the moment, the international organization adheres to a fundamentally different way compared to the UN Norms to regulate the activities of cross-border corporate groups. Since 1982, the UN has had a practice of appointing Special Rapporteurs, who receive a mandate from the UN Human Rights Council under Special Procedures. The duties of the Special Rapporteurs include the analysis of various issues in the field of human rights and freedoms through the consideration of individual complaints, conducting research, providing reports on the results of activities after the expiration of the mandate, participating in activities aimed at promoting the protection of human rights.

On 28 July 2005, the UN Secretary-General announced the appointment of Professor John Ruggie as UN Special Rapporteur on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises. The appointment was made at the request of the UN Commission on Human Rights (predecessor body of the Human Rights Council), indicated in resolution 2005/69, after receiving the approval of ECOSOC. The Special Rapporteur’s mandate includes “defining and explaining standards of corporate responsibility and accountability in relation to human rights” [6]. During the term of the mandate in 2005-2011. John Ruggie prepared six official research reports for the UN Human Rights Council, held several regional consultations with the participation of all interested parties, incl. business community, human rights organizations, state representatives, working groups with lawyers, as well as meetings focused on individual business sectors.

The main result of the work of the Special Rapporteur was the development of the UN Framework (UN Framework) on transnational corporations and human rights, based on three main postulates: 1) the duty of states to protect citizens from violations of human rights by third parties; 2) corporate responsibility to respect human rights; and 3) victims’ access to effective judicial and non-judicial remedies [33]. The Framework was unanimously endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council in 2008. In March 2011, the Special Rapporteur presented the Guiding Principles on Engaging Business and Human Rights: Implementing the UN Protection, Respect and Remedy Framework approved by the UN Human Rights Council in June 2011 [21]. Recognizing the high theoretical and academic value of the activities of the Special Rapporteur, as well as a significant contribution to the promotion of the protection of human and civil rights and freedoms, we note, however, that in terms of formalizing the rules legally binding cross-border corporate groups, as well as introducing a mechanism at the international level to hold them accountable, the UN Framework is a step backwards. A large number of principles are still addressed directly by the state and actually duplicate the norms of international treaties. The quintessence of the document is the thesis that states should take appropriate measures to protect human rights, incl. taking into account the illegal activities of corporate groups. However, as already noted, this obligation of states has long been enshrined at the international level and has been repeatedly incorporated into codes of corporate conduct, starting with the Code of UN TNCs. The obligations of cross-border corporate groups are stated as follows: “avoid violation of human rights”, “strive to prevent or mitigate adverse impacts on human rights”, “statement of policy commitments to promote human rights”, etc. Obviously, the document is in the nature of a typical non-binding code of conduct, the failure of which to adequately regulate the activities of cross-border corporate groups has been demonstrated by the practice of the existence of such documents in the OECD and the ILO.

Recognizing the expediency of international legal unification of the norms on the legal regulation of the activities and responsibilities of cross-border corporate groups, it should be noted that due to the polar interests of host states and host states, the creation of unified norms in the near future is not possible. Although uniform norms developed within the framework of intergovernmental organizations are necessary, work in this direction should not be limited only, since in practice it may take several more decades and end in compromises. One compromise is codes of conduct, which have had little success largely due to their voluntary, non-binding nature and the lack of effective enforcement mechanisms. With the potential to transform into a hard law instrument, at the moment they do not represent a reliable source of legal regulation.

References

1. Arechaga de Jimenez Eduardo. Modern international law. M., 1983.

2. Universal Declaration of Human Rights: adopted by the UN General Assembly 10 Dec. 1948 // Ros. gas. 1995. 5 Apr.

3. Maastricht guidelines on violations of economic, social and cultural rights 1997 // U.N. Doc E/C.12/2000/13 (22-26 January 1997).

4. International Covenant on economic, social and cultural rights of 1966 // Bulletin of the USSR Armed Forces. 1976. No. 17, art. 291.

5. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights // Gazette of the USSR Armed Forces. 1976. No. 17, art. 291.

6. UN

   No. SG/A/934 dated July 28, 2005 [Electronic resource]. URL: http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2005/sga934.doc.htm (date of access: 10/17/2012).

7. Draft rules on the responsibility of transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights: UN document E/CN.4/SUB.2/2003/12 (2003) [Electronic resource]. URL: http://law.edu.ru/norm/norm.asp?normID=1294916 (date of access: 10/17/2012).

8. OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises 2011 [Electronic resource]. URL: http://www.oecd.org/daf/internationalinvestment/guidelinesformultinationalenterprises/48004323.pdf (accessed 10/17/2012).

9. Tripartite Declaration of Principles Concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy: Adopted by the Governing Body of the Intern. Labor Office at its 204th session (Geneva, November 1977) as amended by its 279th session (Geneva, November 2000)) [Electronic resource]. URL: http://www.ilo.org/public/russian/region/eurpro/moscow/areas/standards/tripartite_declaration.pdf (accessed 10/17/2012).

10. Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of the State 1974: Resolution of the UN General Assembly of 12 Dec. 1974 No. 3281 (XXIX).

11. Aguirre Daniel. Multinational corporations and the realization of economic, social and cultural rights // Cal. W. International Law Journal. 2004.

12. 9 November 2004 [Electronic resource]. URL: http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AFR44/020/2004/en (accessed 10/17/2012).

13. Ayoub Lena. Nike just does it – and why the United States shouldn’t: the United States’ international obligation to hold MNCs accountable for their labor rights violations abroad // DePaul Business Law Journal. 1999 Spring-Summer.

14. Baker Mark B. Private codes of conduct: should the fox guard the henhouse? // U. Miami Inter-Am. L. Rev. 1993. Volume 24.

15. Brownlie Ian. Principles of public international law. Oxford. 2003.

16. Compa Lance. Enforcing international labor rights through corporate codes of conduct // Columbia Journal of Transnational Law Association. 1995.

17. Deva Surya. UN’s Human Rights Norms for Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises: an imperfect step in the right direction? // ILSA Journal of International and Comparative Law. 2004 Spring.

18. Doane Deborah. The myth of corporate social responsibility. 4 November 2005 [Electronic resource]. URL: http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/tncs/2005/1104myth.htm (accessed 10/17/2012).

19. Frey Barbara. The legal and ethical responsibilities of transnational corporations in the protection of international human rights // Minnesota Journal of Global Trade. 1997 Winter.

20. Granatino Kimberly Gregalis. Corporate responsibility now: profit at the expense of human rights with exemption from liability? // Suffolk Transnational Law Review Winter. 1999.

21. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework. A/HRC/17/31 (21 March 2011).

22. Henkin Louis. The Universal declaration at 50 and the challenge of global markets // Brooklyn Journal of International Law. 1999 April.

23. Human Rights Watch, Letter from Roth Kenneth, Executive director, to Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary General (28 July 2000) [Electronic resource]. URL: http://www. hrw.org (date of access: 10/17/2012).

24. Human Rights Watch, World Report 1999: Special programs and campaigns – corporations and human rights [Electronic resource].

    URL: http://www.hrw.org/wr2k/Issues-03.htm (accessed 10/17/2012).

25. Human Rights Watch, World Report 2006 [Electronic resource]. URL: http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/wr2006.pdf (accessed 10/17/2012).

26. Kelley Glen. Multilateral investment treaties: a balanced approach to multinational corporations // Columbia Journal of Transnational Law. 2001.

27. Kinley David. Tadaki Junko. From talk to walk: the emergence of human rights responsibilities for corporations at international law // Virginia Journal of International Law. 2004 Summer.

28. 23 June 2004 [Electronic resource]. URL: http://www.globalpolicy.org/reform/business/2004/0623partnerships. htm (accessed 10/17/2012).

29. Muchlinski Peter T. Human Rights and Multinationals: Is there a problem? // International affairs. 2001. Volume 77. No. 1.

30. Paust Jordan J. Human rights responsibilities of private corporations // Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law. 2002 May.

31. Paust Jordan J. The other side of the right: private duties under human rights law // Harvard Human Rights Journal. 1992. Spring.

32. Ratner Steven. R. Corporations and human rights: a theory of legal responsibility // Yale Law Journal. 2001.December.

33. Report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, John Ruggie: Protect, Respect and Remedy: a Framework for Business and Human Rights.