The Regulation of Translational Corporations: National & Global Interventions

This paper analyses the recent trends in public policies for regulating and monitoring the conduct of transnational corporations (TNCs). Both LDC governments and international agencies have been active in this field for over a decade. The emerging patterns in foreign direct investment, the growing role of non-equity forums of participation by TNCs, trends in East-West cooperation, the role of international banks, and the emergence of TNCs from LDCs and the socialist countries are examined in the first section of the paper. Shifts in the focus of host country policies toward TNCs, new initiatives in the regulation of transborder data flows, and a segmentation of countries by the mix of policies are highlighted in the second section. The global concerns about the conduct of TNCs and the interventions by UN agencies to frame a code of conduct for TNCs are then discussed in brief. The concluding section notes the emerging international trend towards the control of TNC activities through policies rather than precipitate governmental action, coupled with the demand for greater public disclosure of information by TNCs, and their impact on the bargaining power of host country governments.