Globalization and

Human Rights
Nuremberg and Geneva Conventions

• Wilhelm Keitel
• Nazi (Hitler’s Military Advisor)
• Tried
• Found Guilty
• Sentenced to Death
• “Geneva Conventions?
Obsolete rubbish.”
US role as purveyor of
Human Rights

• Woodrow Wilson
• FDR
• Freedom
• Democracy
• Liberty
• Center for Constitutional
Rights (ccr-ny.org)
• Lawsuit filed in Germany
• “Universal Jurisdiction”
• cf Spanish Judge Garzon
Economic Globalization

• Post-Fordist Production
• Deregulation
• Technology
• Outsourcing
• Development
• Structural Adjustment
Fordism and Post-Fordism

• Fordism • Flexible specialization

• 1914 Motor Co. • Flexibility
• Assembly line – Labor markets
• Mass production – Labor processes
• Mass consumption – Products
– Patterns of consumption
• Higher wages
• Time-Space Compression
• Corporate control
• New sectors of production
of social relations
• New ways of financing
• Intensified rates of innovation
– Commercial
– Technological
– Organizational
Technology

• Containerization
– Cargo shipping
• Computerization
• Just-in-time (JIT) production
– No or little inventory costs
• Reduces production costs
of overseas manufacturing
Deregulation

• Government lessens controls

– “Laissez-faire”
– Reduces Tariffs on Trade (EPZ & FTZ)
• Private corporations
– Accountable to shareholders
• Market regulates
– Invisible hand of the market
• Better for competition
– Spurs Innovation
• Criticisms
– Gov’t underwrites and protects corporations
– No accountability to the People
– Shared resources not properly invested
– Private ownership of “commons”☺
Outsourcing

• Obtaining (goods or a service) by

contract from an outside supplier

• Two sides
– Multinational corporation
– Country accepting investment

• Whose Responsibility?
• Legal liability?
• “Corporate Accountability”
“Development”

• Loans
– World Bank
– IMF
• Infusion of capital ‘70s & ‘80s
• Privatization & deregulation of
• social services + “commons”
• Economic interdependence
Structural Adjustment

• Can’t pay back loans

• Debts rise
• Currency depreciates
• GNP drops
• Can’t pay back loans
• Debts rise
• Structural Adjustment ensues
– Stabilization
– Liberalization
– Privatization

• “TAKINGS” clause of US
Constitution (Eminent Domain)
RESPONSES
Davos, Switzerland vs
Porto Alegre, Brazil

• World Social Forum

– Response to WEF
• Debt Forgiveness
Corporate Accountability

• Ethical principles
• Codes of conduct
– Sullivan Principles
– Maastricht Treaty

• Legal liability
• Collective Bargaining
Local Uprisings

Bolivia and Water

Cochabamba
DOE v. UNOCAL

• US-based corporation
• Oil pipeline project in Burma
• 1997 ERI, CCR, and others
• Filed suit in US Fed Ct (9th Cir. Ct)
• Alien Tort Claims Act
• For human rights abuses
• Upheld use of ATCA in US
Federal Court for US-based
corporations for human rights
abuses worldwide

• Jus Cogens = higher law

= peremptory law
FDR & Economic Bill of Rights

• January 11, 1944

• State of the Union Addres
• “Necessitous men are not free men”