First hundred days
As we noted in an article published recently on The Conversation, law very often privileges the rights of corporate persons above flesh and blood persons. This is not an uncommon pattern: initiatives that start out to regulate misconduct have often turned to corporate advantage. Such protections became known as a “treatment standard” and it was conceived to give home-state transnational corporations (TNCs) the right to protection from ‘discriminatory’ or other potentially damaging treatment from host states (especially former colonies and developing nations). Human rights agendas were perversely used to demand a “right to development” that was quickly translated into a right to protection against the loss of profits.
#First hundred days code#
In the early 1970s, amidst optimism for the development of a UN Code of Conduct for Transnational Corporations, 'global north' nations used the process of extending human rights protections to corporate activities to protect corporations themselves. Indeed, this contradiction is an enduring theme in the development of policy in the UN for over four decades, as we note in our new book on the subject. The way that this contradiction between the rights of people and the rights of corporations is played out is by no means a new phenomenon. There has been no free, prior and informed consent for the project, which breaches both international recommendations from the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and the Organisation of American States’ American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The pipeline crosses through traditional lands of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. Just before taking office, he confirmed his support for the completion of the Dakota Pipeline and shortly after his inauguration he signed an executive order jump-starting the project. Over the past 100 days, Trump has demonstrated time and again that business trumps human rights. In the early 1970s, global north nations used the process of extending human rights protections to corporate activities to protect corporations themselves. One of Pruitt’s earliest decisions was to allow continued use of the pesticide chlorpyrifos, despite conclusions from US government scientists that it can cause learning deficits, impacts on brain development, reproductive health problems, and increased rates of cancer, particularly in children. The organisation has described the administration’s choice of Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency as alarming – with good reason. The administration’s determination to uphold the rights of big business over the rights of the people has attracted condemnation from Human Rights Watch.
Top of the list is the Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, who in a number of key cases has ruled against the claims of workers, to uphold the rights of their corporate employers. His ‘ corporate cabinet’ is packed with individuals who have made their name proclaiming the rights of corporations.
Wednesday’s decision to slash corporation tax demonstrates clearly that there is one category of ‘persons’ to which Trump’s disdain for human rights does not apparently extend. A number of his executive orders have directly contravened the principles of human rights, including his racist attack on particular categories of immigrants and his restrictions on a woman’s right to choose. It has threatened to leave the United Nations Human Rights Council and has signalled Trump’s enthusiasm for the most extreme forms of torture. All rights reserved.After 100 days in office, the Trump Administration continues to wear its abject disdain for human rights on its sleeve. Amnesty International hold a protest to mark US President Donald Trump's first 100 days in office (29 April), outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square, London.