PART THREE: SOVEREIGNTY, JURISDICTION AND UNEVEN ACCESS TO JUST OUTCOMES We turn now to the second implication of the globalization of law reform. As noted in Part One, the process of international law-making and globalization is imperfect, proceeding rapidly in some areas and slowly or not at all in others. States globalize in the economic area, dismantling trade barriers and codifying standards that facilitate international commerce. At the same time, they resist globalization in other areas, invoking state sovereignty. The result is a patchwork of globalized, quasi-globalized and purely national standards that raise key questions about law. I. JUSTICE AND INTERNATIONAL WRONGS International law traditionally was the “law of nations” – a body of principles designed to address states’ relationships with one another. Disputes arising from these relationships were settled, if they were settled at all, through negotiation, mediation, arbitration or, in extreme cases, armed conflict. In this classic law of nations, international law said relatively little about the rights and duties of individuals. That situation has now changed. Since the end of the Second World War, international law has broadened its reach to include such issues as human rights. Trade and investment law has also expanded, extending new rights to economic actors. There are now many more circumstances in which mistreatment of persons by states (and also by individuals) may be regarded as a violation of international law. International law, in other words, includes a concept of injustice. Remedies for these wrongs are, however, uneven. II. CREATING INTERNATIONAL REMEDIES International remedies can be assessed with reference to three scenarios: state-state disputes; state-individual disputes; and, individual-individual disputes. The peaceful settlement of disputes between states is a longstanding preoccupation of international law. However that law cannot compel sovereign states to participate in dispute resolution if they choose not to. This fact has greatly limited the effectiveness of the planet’s key international court – the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Key International Courts and Tribunals The world’s key international courts and tribunals include: - International Court of Justice: The ICJ was created in the 1940s as the United Nations’ judicial organ. It has the broadest “subject-matter” jurisdiction of any international court, and is capable of hearing disputes on any matter of international law between states. It can also provide “advisory” opinions to organs of the United Nations upon request.
- International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea: ITLOS hears certain disputes concerning the interpretation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
- World Trade Organization: The WTO trade agreements provide for the settlement of disputes that arise under the WTO’s various trade rules through dispute settlement panels, and on appeal, before an “Appellate Body”.
- International Criminal Court: The ICC has jurisdiction to try persons accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. It builds on the experience of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and its counterpart for Rwanda. The latter two tribunals continue to exist, as do special “hybrid” domestic/international tribunals hearing cases in Sierra Leone, East Timor and Kosovo.
- Regional Courts and Tribunals: There are several regional courts and tribunals, of varying stature and effectiveness. Examples include the European Court of Justice, the European Court of Human Rights, and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. The mandate and powers of these regional bodies are established by the treaties that govern them.
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The ICJ has only limited jurisdiction over disputing sovereign states: it can only hear a case when all states involved in the matter consent. Unfortunately, states often decline to give this permission. In its almost sixty-year history, the Court has issued remarkably few decisions. In fact, the ICJ’s output is now dwarfed by the several hundred cases that have been brought before the 11-year-old World Trade Organization (WTO) and its dispute panels and Appellate Body. The WTO creates a potent system for the settlement of trade disputes between the WTO’s 148 Member-states. In the WTO system, states are reasonably quick to protest actions by other states that they see as inconsistent with international trade rules (and often economically disadvantageous to the protesting state). | |
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States are much more reluctant to challenge those actions of fellow states that are inconsistent with international human rights standards. Some international human rights treaties anticipate states being able to complain about another state’s performance under the treaty to a so-called “treaty body” established by the convention. These treaty bodies – organizations like the United Nations Human Rights Committee or the Committee Against Torture – are not courts, nor arbitral bodies with binding decision-making authority. At best, they issue “views” presenting their conclusions on a state’s human rights performance. These documents have moral force, but are not binding in law. Even so, to date, there has not been a single instance of a state bringing an “inter-state” complaint to one of these treaty bodies.12 This pattern of relatively potent dispute settlement in the area of economic rights and weaker dispute settlement in other areas also exists in state-individual disputes. These involve efforts by individuals to hold states to account. The most potent system of state-individual dispute settlement concerns disagreements between foreign investors and states. Investor-state dispute mechanisms are commonplace, and are found in treaties like the NAFTA and many of the estimated 2,000 bilateral investment treaties that link together the states of the world. Investorstate dispute settlement systems allow foreign investors to sue states before international arbitration bodies when certain economic rights are impaired. Typically, this happens when an asset is expropriated or the state violates a standard of “minimum treatment”. Decisions issued by these arbitral bodies are binding, and can usually be enforced in the domestic courts of many of the world’s countries. The situation is very different in non-investment areas. In many circumstances, no international tribunal exists that allows an individual to bring complaints about a state. For instance, there is no widescale, international, individual complaints mechanism in existence through which individuals can complain about a state’s environmental performance. Some human rights treaties do create complaints mechanisms, allowing individuals to protest mistreatment by their states before “treaty bodies” like the UN Human Rights Committee. These complaint mechanisms are, however, voluntary: states choose whether they will allow the mechanisms to apply to them. Many states refuse to participate, a practice that makes it impossible for people injured by some of the world’s worst human rights-abusing nations to bring any sort of international complaint. Even when states do accept these complaint mechanisms, the treaty bodies are not able to issue binding legal decisions. Instead, they issue “views” – reports that may make recommendations, but are often ignored. Regional human rights courts, competent to issue binding legal determinations, exist in some parts of the world. Canada has, however, so far declined to participate in the American Convention on Human Rights. This is the treaty that creates the regional court for the Americas, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. The federal government has been discussing with the provinces possible accession to this agreement for many years. More progress has been made in the area of international criminal law, which mainly involves state complaints against individuals. Persons committing crimes against humanity, war crimes, or genocide are now subject to prosecution before the International Criminal Court, so long as either their state of nationality or the state in which the crimes took place had no party to the treaty creating the Court. Moreover, this international criminal law has been “internalized” in some countries. In 2000, for example, Canada passed the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act.13 Acting Locally, Thinking Globally in Criminal Law In October 2005, the first-ever charges were brought under Canada’s Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, directed at a failed refugee claimant from Rwanda who was an alleged participant in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Reflecting the international nature of these events, it is expected that the Canadian court charged with adjudicating this trial will be guided, in part, by the jurisprudence of the ad hoc international criminal tribunals established in the mid-1990s to try crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda. Not everyone is pleased by this possibility: some defence lawyers wonder if some of the doctrines developed by these international tribunals are compatible with the standards of justice traditionally applied in Canadian criminal trials. |
As a final point on international remedies, it should come as no surprise that, because of its historical focus on states, international law contains few means for individuals to complain about the actions of other individuals. Victims of crimes against humanity, war crimes, or genocide, might urge prosecutions of perpetrators before the International Criminal Court, but they cannot compel a response. No international body is able to hear their cases directly, nor to order damages for the injuries they have suffered at the hands of other individuals. In commerce, international law is more accommodating. A commercial dispute between foreigners may be settled via a private international arbitration. Then, treaties like the United Nations Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (New York, 1958) in most instances require national courts to give force to these arbitral decisions. Overall, then, international remedies are applied very unevenly. In trade, investment and criminal law, states and individuals make greater use of them and decisions are more binding. This differs from the international remedies in fields such as human rights and the environment. These are less accessible to individuals, infrequently used by states, and the decisions are not legally binding. Very few international remedies exist for individuals seeking redress from other individuals. Questions for further discussion: | 16. | Should Canada promote greater use and effectiveness of international remedies both domestically and internationally?
| | 17. | Should Canada give more domestic legal force to non-binding decisions rendered by international treaty bodies? For example, should Canada be more willing to accord “views” of international human rights treaty bodies more legal force in domestic law?
| | 18. | Should the government do more to publicize the existence of international remedies?
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III. CREATING DOMESTIC REMEDIES A single key point emerges from the preceding discussion: there is no natural correspondence between the rights created in international law and the availability of an international remedy. Remedies are more common and most rigorous in the area of economic rights for investors. Remedies are poor or non-existent in other areas. Globalization has, in other words, deepened and enriched international dispute settlement in economic matters, and neglected remedies in other areas. In these circumstances, it is not surprising that those whose international rights are violated but who have no access to international remedy often seek solutions in domestic venues, bringing civil lawsuits – so-called “transnational” litigation. In so doing, they confront significant hurdles. A. International Complaints in Domestic Courts 1. The Problem of Jurisdiction Over the Wrong International wrongs are not necessarily also wrongs in domestic law. International law sometimes guarantees rights that are not easily converted into rights for which people can claim remedies in domestic law. For instance, the NAFTA guarantees that NAFTA states will meet a “minimum standard of treatment” of investors from other NAFTA states. NAFTA tribunals have concluded that this minimum standard is violated when the investor is treated in a “grossly unfair, unjust or idiosyncratic, [or] discriminatory” manner. When they suffer improper treatment of this kind, investors may be able to claim damages in NAFTA proceedings. While some grossly unfair government actions may be so egregious as to allow compensation in Canadian law, the NAFTA minimum standard of treatment appears to be much more expansive than any right existing in Canadian law (at least any right allowing monetary damages). International human rights law often insists on effective domestic remedies for human rights violations. Article 14 of the United Nations Convention Against Torture, for instance, requires each state to “ensure in its legal system that the victim of an act of torture obtains redress and has an enforceable right to fair and adequate compensation”.14 However, torture per se is not a civil cause of action in Canada. Instead, acts of torture would be compensated, if at all, as the result of a common law “tort” action. The key point is that there is no automatic overlap between international and domestic rights nor between the remedies promised by international law and those available in domestic law. Domestic courts may, in other words, lack “subject-matter jurisdiction”. Some states have greater correspondence between international and domestic rights, and allow domestic remedies for international wrongs. In its Alien Tort Claims Act, for instance, the United States allows foreign plaintiffs to bring tort claims in U.S. federal court for violations of “the law of nations or a treaty of the United States”. The U.S. Torture Victims Protection Act allows a civil lawsuit in U.S. federal courts against individuals who, on behalf of foreign governments, have tortured the plaintiffs. Relying on these two laws, many lawsuits have been brought in U.S. courts by victims of notorious human rights abusers and others complicit in their crimes. The defendants are sometimes not in the United States, so the plaintiffs’ success in these trials is often simply a moral victory. In other instances, the defendants have assets in the United States that may be seized to compensate the plaintiffs should they succeed in the lawsuit. Question for further discussion: | 19. | Should Canada create civil causes of action tied to international wrongs? If so, how should it do so? Would this require each province to act, since the provinces have constitutional jurisdiction over “civil rights and property”?
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2. The Problem of Jurisdiction Over the Wrong-Doer “Subject-matter jurisdiction” may be a significant problem. But when the prejudice is one of torture, for example, the problem can often be overcome by bringing a lawsuit in tort. A more pressing problem is “personal jurisdiction” – the absence of court jurisdiction over the defendant. a) Convincing the Court to Hear the Case Domestic courts may decline to hear a lawsuit motivated by an international wrong on several grounds. First, a Canadian court will refuse to hear a case unless there is some link between the wrong and Canada. If the defendant is located in Canada, that link may exist to one or other Canadian court. If not, then courts may insist on some other tie to Canada – such as evidence that some of the harm suffered took place in Canada. This requirement presents an obvious limit on most international complaints brought in Canada. Even if this requirement is met, Canadian courts retain a residual discretion to dismiss a case on the basis that the matter is best heard in a foreign court. Courts applying this forum non conveniens doctrine often point to the fact that events constituting the wrong took place overseas, or that witnesses are located overseas, or that the language of most of the evidence is foreign, to justify their decision to refuse a case. On the other hand, some Canadian courts have declined to dismiss a case on forum non conveniens grounds when they are persuaded that it would be impossible for the plaintiffs to receive a fair trial in the overseas court. Questions for further discussion: | 20. | Should Canada be prepared to accord Canadian courts jurisdiction to hear civil trials that deal with the most serious violations of international rights, irrespective of where they occur?
| | 21. | What implications should transnational litigation have for Canadian rules of evidence, when witnesses and evidence may be located elsewhere and not be easily brought to Canadian courts?
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b) The Shield of State Immunity Venue problems are compounded by special rules on immunity when the defendant is a foreign state. In international law, sovereign states are usually immune from criminal prosecutions or civil actions in the courts of other states. “State immunity” is justified as a necessary reflection of “sovereign equality of states”: the notion that all states are equally sovereign, and that the courts of one state are in no position to adjudicate the actions of another state. A more practical justification for “state immunity” is the fear of tit-for-tat retaliations: if courts in one state were to rule on the actions of another state, the latter could be expected to retaliate in its own courts. “State immunity” is not, however, absolute. Certain exceptions are recognized, both in international treaties on state immunity and in the Canadian statute codifying state immunity in Canadian law. State immunity does not apply, for instance, to a proceeding involving a commercial transaction between a state and a person. State immunity also does not apply to a lawsuit concerning the death or injury to a person, or damage to property, if these wrongs were done by the defendant state in the territory of the state in which the lawsuit is brought. Recently, debate has centred on whether state immunity should apply when the case concerns human rights abuses like torture, or crimes against humanity, war crimes, or genocide. In the famous 1999 Pinochet case15, the United Kingdom’s highest court, the House of Lords, concluded that Chile’s former dictator, Augusto Pinochet, was not entitled to state immunity from criminal prosecution in Europe for torture in Chile, because Chile had ratified the UN Convention Against Torture and thereby acknowledged that torture was not a proper state activity. State immunity has, however, stood in the way of domestic legal action in other cases. Recently, Belgium sought to initiate a criminal prosecution against the then-Congolese foreign minister, alleging crimes against humanity and war crimes. The Democratic Republic of the Congo sued Belgium in the ICJ, claiming that a domestic Belgian prosecution would violate state immunity, because a sitting foreign minister was absolutely immune to any legal proceeding in the courts of another state. The ICJ agreed, concluding that state immunity in domestic (although not in international) courts applied to any serving foreign minister, head of state or head of government for civil or criminal liability, even with respect to such grave charges as crimes against humanity and war crimes. In Canada, a recent effort to sue the Iranian state in an Ontario court for compensation for torture of the plaintiff in Iran also failed. The Ontario Court of Appeal concluded that torture was not one of the exceptions permissible under Canada’s statute on state immunity. Suing Iran in Canada: A Tale of Two Lawsuits Two lawsuits brought recently against Iran in Ontario courts illustrate the difficulties of transnational litigation. In Bouzari v. Iran, ((2004) 71 O.R. (3d) 675 (C.A.)), an Iranian emigrant (and new Canadian citizen) brought suit in Ontario against Iran for torture suffered in that country as a consequence of a soured business deal with an Iranian government-affiliated enterprise. The Ontario Court of Appeal dismissed the case, concluding that Iran was protected by the doctrine of state immunity. The commercial context sparking the torture did not suffice to bring the lawsuit within one of the exceptions to state immunity: commercial activities by the defendant state. But in a second case, Crown Resources Corp. S.A. v. National Iranian Drilling Co., ([2005] O.J. No. 3871 (S.C.J.)), a Canadian corporation with a contractual dispute with a state-owned Iranian company persuaded an Ontario court to hear the case. The court concluded that state immunity did not apply because of the commercial nature of the dispute. Moreover, Ontario was the appropriate forum for the case to be heard, despite the fact that much of the dispute concerned activities in Iran, because the plaintiff would not be able to obtain a fair trial in Iran. In summary, under the Canadian state immunity statute, a state committing human rights abuses in its territory is immune to a lawsuit brought in the courts of another state, but a state violating a commercial agreement with a foreign company is not. |
Question for further discussion: | 22. | In what circumstances should Canada limit state immunity? If it does, how should it do so in a fashion that responds to the rules of state immunity that exist in international law? What would be the impact on a state’s diplomatic relations?
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c) Enforcing an Adequate Remedy Even if a plaintiff is able to circumvent jurisdictional obstacles, mount a successful lawsuit, and receive an award of damages, enforcing that court order may be difficult. The defendant may have few or no assets in Canada and foreign courts may refuse to honour the Canadian judgment. The reverse may also be true: the case may be heard overseas, and the defendant’s assets may be in Canada. Yet, as a matter of international law, Canadian courts are not obliged to recognize foreign judgments (although they often do so). There is no international treaty yet in force with wide membership that requires courts to recognize the damage awards of foreign courts for such things as personal injuries. The situation is quite different when it comes to enforcing arbitral rulings concerning an international contract. As already noted, private parties may agree to have disputes under the contract submitted to private international commercial arbitrations. Here, the widely-ratified United Nations Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (New York, 1958) requires national courts to give force to these arbitral decisions in most instances. Furthermore, the new Convention on Choice of Court Agreements will allow contracting parties to agree to have disputes covered by this Convention settled in the courts of a particular state, and then enforce that judgment in other states that are parties to the treaty. Question for further discussion: | 23. | Should Canada take the position domestically and internationally that damages awarded in a fair, foreign trial concerning an international wrong of whatever character (and not just concerning contractual matters) may be enforced by a domestic court? What are some of the advantages and disadvantages?
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Canada has ratified the “optional protocol” to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This means that individuals may bring complaints to the UN Human Rights Committee alleging violations of human rights by Canada. Dozens of cases have been brought against Canada. Most have been unsuccessful, but the UN Human Rights Committee has found some to have merit. In some instances, Canadian governments have complied with views issued by the Committee. In other instances, they have ignored them. In the 2002 Ahani case, the Human Rights Committee requested that Canada refrain from deporting the complainant until it had time to review his claims that his deportation to torture would violate Canada’s international obligations. Canada refused, and the Ontario Court of Appeal concluded that the Committee’s request was not legally binding in Canadian (or international) law.
Ahani v. Canada (Attorney General) (2002), 58 O.R. (3d) 107 (C.A.). |
B. Domestic Regulation of International Conduct Governments have sometimes become more directly involved in regulating overseas conduct, extending their laws “extraterritorially” to people and events located outside their borders. The United States has been most active in this area, most notably in competition law. But Canada too has certain extraterritorial laws. Some reflect what is known as the “universal principle” of state jurisdiction in international law: that there are some international wrongs so offensive that every state should be entitled to make commission of those wrongs a crime, without regard to where and by whom they are committed. Thus, as already noted, in Canadian criminal law, a person who has committed a war crime, a crime against humanity, or genocide can be prosecuted in Canada, even when those events take place entirely overseas. As part of its international treaty obligations, Canada has agreed to criminalize some other forms of internationally wrongful conduct committed overseas. Some terrorism offences, for example, have extraterritorial reach in the Criminal Code of Canada, as does the crime of torture. Likewise, the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions requires Canada to make it a crime for a person to bribe a foreign public official. In other circumstances, Canada has chosen voluntarily to extend its laws extraterritorially to its own nationals engaged in acts viewed as pernicious. Put another way, Canada has responded to its own values by choosing to regulate extraterritorially. For instance, the Criminal Code makes certain acts of pedophilia a crime in Canada, even when committed by a Canadian national while overseas. On the whole, however, Canada has been quite conservative in extending its laws beyond its borders. In recent years, controversy has arisen over Canada’s failure to regulate the overseas activities of its resource companies, some of which have been accused of serious human rights and environmental delinquency in their foreign operations. In response to these complaints, the government has called repeatedly for voluntary compliance by these companies with “codes of conduct” that often pledge companies to meet international standards. A key example is the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. However, even when the standards set out in this or other codes are adequate, there is no legal enforcement and very few (if any) legal consequences for non-compliance. The government has resisted calls for extraterritorial regulation by pointing to the possibility that extraterritorial laws might conflict with the jurisdiction of other states. When events take place overseas, evidence is located outside of Canada and foreign jurisdictions may have to cooperate in the collection of this evidence. When they do not, it may be difficult to apply the law fairly, as measured by conventional standards of proof. Regulating Canada’s Mining Companies: Competing Views In June 2005, the House of Commons Sub-Committee on Human Rights and International Development released a report on Canadian mining companies and international corporate social responsibility. Reviewing reports of poor environmental and human rights practices by some companies, the Sub-Committee recommended, among other things, that the government “[e]stablish clear legal norms in Canada to ensure that Canadian companies and residents are held accountable when there is evidence of environmental and/or human rights violations associated with the activities of Canadian mining companies”. In its October 2005 response, the government declined to do so: The primary responsibility for the promotion and protection of human rights and the environment rests with states. States implement their international obligations relating to human rights and the environment through a variety of measures, including through the adoption of domestic legislation. … Canadian law does not generally provide for extraterritorial application. Extending the application of Canadian legislation abroad could raise several problems, including conflict with the sovereignty of foreign states; conflicts where states have legislation that differs from that of Canada; and difficulties with Canadian officials taking enforcement action in foreign states. Canada has objected to the extraterritorial application of other states’ laws and jurisdiction to Canadians and Canadian businesses where there is no sufficient nexus to those states or where the action undermines Canadian legislative authority or Canadian policy in the area.
Canada, Mining in Developing Countries – Corporate Social Responsibility: The Government’s Response to the Report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade. (Ottawa: Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, October 2005) at 8-9, online: http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/ tna-nac/documents/scfait-response-en.pdf |
The government also sometimes argues that more extensive use by Canada of extraterritorial regulation would undermine the credibility of its own efforts to discourage the application of foreign extraterritorial laws in Canada. This Canadian opposition to foreign extraterritoriality has come in different forms. For instance, on occasion, Canada has introduced “blocking” legislation preventing Canadians from cooperating with foreign extraterritorial regulation affecting Canada. It has also sometimes communicated its objections by intervening directly in U.S. courts that are applying what Canada regards as extraterritorial laws. A Canadian oil company is currently being sued in the United States under the Alien Tort Claims Act for alleged complicity with human rights abuses in Sudan, including war crimes and genocide. In response, the Canadian government has actively sought the dismissal of the case. In a February 2005 letter, the Canadian Embassy to the United States wrote: Canada reiterates its overriding concerns regarding the extraterritorial application of the Alien Tort Claims Act to activities of Canadian corporations that take place entirely outside the US and in particular, the current application of the Alien Tort Claims Act against a Canadian corporation, Talisman Energy…Canada is opposed, in principle, to broad assertions of extraterritorial jurisdiction over Canadian individuals and entities arising out of activities that take place entirely outside of the state asserting jurisdiction.
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Questions for further discussion: | 24. | Should Canada be more active in regulating the overseas activities of Canadian actors? If so, what values should prompt this extraterritorial regulation: established international human rights norms; established international labour rights; domestic environmental standards, etc.?
| | 25. | To determine if a law should have extraterritorial scope, should there be different considerations for civil and criminal law matters?
| | 26. | Procedurally, how would extraterritorial regulation work? How can difficulties in enforcement and evidence-gathering across borders be resolved?
| | 27. | How should Canada respond to the application of foreign extraterritorial laws to Canadians? What principles should guide this determination?
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In an ideal world, we wouldn’t have boundaries between countries; everyone would be peaceful, with a global perspective of their actions, making borders unnecessary. Regrettably, though we all live on the same planet, few view their priorities on a planetary perspective, choosing to restrict their focus to national or local matters. Yet, it is unrealistic and naïve for us to consider the actions of one Canadian can not affect the life of another a distance away….Yet, as people travel easily throughout the world, national laws do not follow them….The violation of human rights while traveling abroad in an effort to protect the rights of children and women is a reasonable limit to put on a tourist. It is demonstrably justified because of positive effect it will have on those being exploited for sexual purposes. The limit is reasonable because it only restricts those intending to take advantage of the commercial sexual exploitation in other countries. Ergo, I believe the use of extraterritorial legislation on Canadian citizens while traveling abroad, especially to developing nations is a reasonable limit.
Joanna Mullen, Grade 12, Catholic Central High School, London, ON
[…] [G]overnments are responsible for establishing the societal ‘rules of the game’, which these companies must follow, both domestically and internationally through regulation and legislation. Governments can also influence corporate governance in terms of export credit financing and other nonlegislative initiatives. Many governments also require environmental and social impact assessments as a pre-condition of approving natural resource development activities. External financial institutions like export credit agencies or the World Bank also provide important financing for corporate activities and thus are in a position to provide financial incentives for certain behaviours, which may or may not include social and environmental considerations. NGOs and civil society actors also can have important watchdog functions, particularly in terms of identifying unrecognized social and environmental impacts and monitoring corporate compliance.
W. Flanagan, and G. Whiteman, Canada and Brazil: A Study in Citizenship and Global Good Governance, (Research Paper, Law Commission of Canada, 2003) [unpublished] at 29-30. |
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