Foreign Policy
Spring 1998

Sidebar: International Law, Inc.

By Steven R. Ratner

International law is no longer the province of states alone. Private actors contribute to its development and enforcement as never before:

Private Lawmakers: The UN’s spate of global conferences all featured a heavy presence of NGOs. For the 1992 Rio conference and 1997 Kyoto conference, environmental NGOs were continually briefed by governments and had the chance to contribute their ideas to the final documents. NGO and corporate officials can even serve on governmental delegations and direct their positions at negotiations.

Private Codes: Besieged by stockholders critical of U.S. investment in apartheid South Africa during the 1970s and 1980s, more than 100 U.S. companies signed onto the Sullivan Principles—a code of conduct drafted in 1977 by Reverend Leon Sullivan, which called for desegregation in the workplace, equal pay, and equal employment practices. Today, private codes govern much U.S. business in poor nations. Written by the companies themselves and not binding, they can affect the welfare of workers and the environment more than most treaties. Big players include the Gap, J.C. Penny, K-Mart, Levi Strauss, Liz Claiborne, L.L. Bean, and Nike. In one of the most progressive of such efforts, members of the U.S. Apparel Industry Partnership voluntarily agreed to a standard code of conduct that prohibits forced labor, child labor, and workweeks exceeding 60 hours.

Private Rightholders: Companies and individuals investing overseas have rights under contracts and bilateral investment treaties to take states to arbitration over expropriation and other investment disputes. Some arbitrations are done by private organizations such as the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris, others by public institutions including the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes, an arm of the World Bank in Washington, DC.

Private Armies: As seen with the Bosnian Serbs or Congolese president Laurent Kabila’s guerrilla army, subnational groups have succeeded in tearing states apart and overthrowing governments. Although legally bound by international law such as the Red Cross rules on civil wars or peace accords that they sign, their observance is often hard to secure. Enforcing these norms often means working with, or putting pressure on, neighboring states that support these groups; but those states can frustrate these efforts by denying such ties.