The crucial role played by transnational corporations (TNCs) on a planetary scale has been a point of focus for researchers and human rights militants for many years. In a recent publication, one of authors of this critical report summarized the matter thus: “To understand the system of dominant power in contemporary society, it is necessary to understand the role that TNCs play within it. TNCs are active in the production of goods and services – in practically all spheres of human activity – as well as in speculation in the financial markets. They engage also in illicit activities and in the grey area between legality and illegality. They play a role front and centre in the making of decisions by the powerful and dominate the instruments that enable them to dictate human behaviour, ideas, aspirations and habits. This multi-facetted activity is dominated by a fundamental objective: obtaining maximum profit in minimum time, and, to attain it, TNCs, especially those enjoying the greatest power, will use any means at their disposal, assured as they are of the complicity of a majority of national and international political elites and of the services of many of the intellectual elites as well as of civil society’s most-in-view personalities. And, when circumstances require it, they can count on the support of great power armed force, visible and/or clandestine – army, special forces etc. It thus comes down to understanding and explaining how the enormous power of TNCs is in the process of emptying representative democracy of all content and how it constitutes a major factor in the political, economic, social, environmental and cultural crises currently affecting humankind. This prompts reflection on human beings “born free and equal in dignity and rights” can recover their decision-making power over their destiny within the framework of a democratic and participative society.”
This report will concentrate mainly on: attempts, until now, to set binding international standards for TNCs; the armaments industry; TNCs dealing in mercenaries; the economic and financial crises, and the consequent impoverishment and the deterioration of the living conditions of large swathes of the world’s population.
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