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Stephen
Kobrin
Photo by Jeff Watts |
Multinationals
need international human rights watchdog
In 2002 Talisman Energy, an independent Canadian oil company sold
its stake in a Sudanese oil project. The company had been the target
of protests by religious organizations and nongovernmental organizations
(NGOs), which contended that Talisman was complicit in the human
rights abuses propagated in the long-running Sudanese Civil War.
Last week, Stephen Kobrin, the William H. Wurster Professor of Multinational
Management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School
of Business, used the Talisman situation as an example of how multinational
corporations bear responsibility and liability when they deal with
propagators of human rights abuses. Speaking to a crowded SIS lounge,
Kobrin said that multinational business cases, such as Talisman’s,
couldn’t be dealt with simply through NGO protests or ad hoc
court proceedings but must become the jurisdiction of an international
body with the power to draw up and enforce human-rights-friendly
guidelines.
—KL
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