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There are international obligations that a Multinational Company (MNC) must respect in order to ensure minimum guarantees in the different fields in particular in the environmental and human rights areas. Thus, MNCs belonging to member states signing these treaties are bound by the latters as well as the MNCs conducting operations in these countries since they must respect the domestic regulations that take into consideration the ratification of these international norms. The problem however arises when a given country has not signed the treaties and in the same time, the companies operating in the territory are Nationally Owned Companies (NOCs). In this case, what are the guarantees that there will not be a violation of domestic rules that otherwise must be applicable in order to protect environmental rights as well as social rights? In the chapter “Multinational Corporations and Corporate Social Responsibility in a Chinese Context: An International Perspective”, the author Angelica Bonfanti examined this issue focusing on the Chinese context. In this regard, it is obvious that the Chinese government has its own definition of the terms “environmental protection” and “human rights”, which means that the latter notions might or might not hold similar meaning under Chinese laws. For this reason, it is important to encourage the Chinese government to sign the international conventions as the state would be bound to respect these norms. In this context, the Chinese government have already signed multiple international agreements associated with environmental matters such the Paris convention and the Montreal protocol. In that sense, the government have endorsed environmental obligations under international law. In fact, it could be said that the main reason for such approach is the level of seriousness that environmental concerns have in particular the issue of climate change and water pollution. These matters are already costing the government huge economic losses as a result of the constant need of new expensive projects for providing drinking water and the constant need for conducting huge rescue and rebuilding operations for the areas that are destroyed by natural catastrophes occurring as a result of climate change. In contrast, China did not sign all the treaties associated with human rights. The country has signed several human rights conventions such as the conventions against genocide, torture, and discrimination, as well as the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Yet, there are still multiple international conventions that are very important but remain unratified up to now such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. However, it is worth mentioning that human rights conventions such as labor conventions contain in some of their provisions the obligation for all countries whether they have signed the treaties or not to promote and respect such values in their territories. What is more important is that, in the Chinese context, the introduction of the notion of harmonious society in 2005 have provided the needed political support for taking into consideration environmental and human rights as the notion emphasizes on the importance of creating harmony between men and nature and creating a balance between trade and Non-Trade Concerns (NTCs).
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