In recent years, a number of international and intergovernmental guidelines have been developed that aim to influence the conduct of multinational enterprises in the field of human rights, labour rights, the environment and other CSR aspects. These include:

• the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises

• the UN Global Compact

• and the UN human rights norms for Multinational Enterprises.

These guidelines are in principle voluntary. However, despite their non-binding character, there are several mechanisms already in place to handle violations of international rules of behaviour such as the OECD Guidelines.

SOMO has been active in the field of the OECD Guidelines before and after their revision in the year 2000. At the moment, SOMO is maintaining a database of all OECD cases which have been filed by NGOs worldwide.

Besides that, SOMO is one of the initiators and executors of the OECD Watch project. OECD Watch is an international network of NGOs which work together on the topic of the OECD Guidelines.

News Guidelines & Regulation