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In her chapter “Multinational Corporations and Corporate Social Responsibility in a Chinese Context: An International Perspective”, the author Angelica Bonfanti examined the role of Multinational Companies (MNCs) in a globalized world as well as the impacts of its operations on international law in general. Indeed, MNCs have greatly benefited from the ability of shifting their whole industry elsewhere in particular to the country that provides the maximum incentives for the big companies looking to make huge profits. This is why huge companies, like Apple or Nestle, decide to build new headquarters in places like China or India. In fact, some of these MNCs have a bigger budget than several countries combined which makes it harder for a state suffering from economic difficulties or any other issue to initiate a legal action against these corporations without considering all the potential consequences that could take place as a result of retaliatory actions or measures that could be taken by these companies such as shifting their business elsewhere or not exporting their products to these countries anymore. In this context, international law is facing the challenges of holding these companies accountable for any violation of global legal obligations due to the fragmentation of the juridical system between international norms, domestic regulations and courts of the hosting country where subsidiaries are usually created or joint-ventures with another local company as well national regulations of the parent company. Thus, not only the legal procedure is very complicated but also the possibility of surpassing the law happens often in third word countries where governments usually turn a blind eye on the unlawful practices of international corporations’ that are needed to run the economy in the absence of strong national industries that would provide jobs to the citizens and make huge investments in the country. International law could be used to sue Western MNCs operating anywhere in the world in accordance with the global regulations as these companies have a separate legal personality that allows states, companies or individuals to sue the entity for any unlawful act that was committed and where these actors could claim compensation for an actual damage that took place. However, in the case of a Chinese MNC, it becomes harder to do so as these are State Owned Companies (NOCs) operating abroad. In fact, these companies are already making huge investments in the African continent where the main idea is “give me your resources and we will build the necessary infrastructure that the country needs”. As such, one hand, these states are in no position to bargain due to their need of the Chinese investments in their economy, and on the other, even a Western country would have to consider suing a Chinese MNCs as the People’s Republic of China will be sued as a result. For this reason, usually countries suffering from damages try to solve the problem diplomatically with the Chinese government. In this context, this chapter provides insights concerning the international law applicable to corporations but also the multiple factors that must be taken into consideration and which influence global norms in the same time.
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