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17 Cardozo J.L. & Gender 261 (2010-2011)
Corporations and Human Rights Law: The Emerging Consensus and its Effects on Women's Employment Rights

handle is hein.journals/cardw17 and id is 265 raw text is: CORPORATIONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS LAW: THE EMERGING CONSENSUS AND ITS EFFECTS ON WOMEN'S EMPLOYMENT RIGHTS TIANA O'KONEK* INTRODUCTION In today's globalized economy, corporations directly impact human dignity, yet states do not have the ability to carry out their duties to protect human rights from corporate harm. Facing intense competition to attract and maintain foreign investment, developing states find it necessary to entice transnational corporations (TNCs) with cheap labor and relaxed human rights enforcement.' The current human rights paradigm, thus, suffers from a severe governance gap rooted in the statist feature of international law. Its impact has been devastating. A case study of the garment industry illustrates this governance gap as well as its disparate effects upon women. Furthermore, an analysis of the relevant soft law instruments reflects the fact that women have been largely overlooked in efforts to fill the human rights governance gap. Mindful of both the gendered evolution of the human rights corpus and the ongoing work to expand the human rights paradigm to recognize women's experiences,2 this Article seeks to discover the extent to which the consensus emerging from the relevant soft law instruments addresses women's employment rights. Part I outlines the evolution of the governance gap and describes its effects on the garment industry and its female workforce. Part II outlines soft law initiatives pertaining to human rights and corporations. Finally, Part III identifies the axes of convergence between the soft law initiatives and analyzes how the emerging framework impacts women's employment rights. In particular, it notes * LL.M. (human rights law), London School of Economics; J.D., University of Iowa College of Law; A.B., Bowdoin College. Tiana O'Konek is an independent consultant based in New York. The author would like to thank her husband and her parents for their support as well as their valuable comments and suggestions. I For purposes of consistency, the term transnational corporation (TNC) will be used throughout this paper but should be interpreted as synonymous with terms such as multinational enterprise. Similarly, American English spellings will be used consistently throughout the paper unless the British spellings appear as part of quoted material or in reference to the International Labour Organization or its core labour standards. 2 See, e.g., HILARY CHARLESWORTH & CHRISTINE CHINKIN, THE BOUNDARIES OF INTERNATIONAL LAW: A FEMINIST ANALYSIS 222-29 (2000). 261