The Relation Between the Construction of Global Value Chains and the Protect ion of Human Rights by Multinational Enterprises

Abstract

The multinational enterprises have expanded their commercial activities in the past years using the global value chains. This market strategy facilitates the fragmentation of the activities allowing enterprises to reach territories they couldn’t before, looking for the exploitation of the different production stages in different territories and more beneficial environments. The expansion of enterprises has led to a transformation of international trade which is a result of a number of factors that can be summarized in the economic globalization concept. The growth of enterprises and the increasing usage of global value chains, has not only shaped the international scene in economic terms, the growing presence of the enterprises to a global level has resulted into numerous human rights violations, specially within the production stages located in less developed countries. Although the law has sought to regulate corporate activity in order to protect human rights, currently the protection mechanisms seem to be insufficient because they are limited to private initiatives, recommendations and mechanisms of voluntary compliance. According to this, and taking into consideration todays international trade landscape, it has become mandatory to understand this new economic phenomenon and the role played by the law within global value chains in order to be able to create mechanisms and strategies that will protect human rights effectively.