On 2 August 1974, the UN Economic and Social Council adopted Resolution 1908 (LVII), which established the UN Centre on Transnational Corporations (the UNCTC) as a permanent organ of the UN. The preamble to the Resolution framed the UNCTC as part of the agenda of the New International Economic Order (NIEO), an alternative vision of international law premised on the recognition of interrelations and dependencies. The scope of the UNCTC's work included compiling databases on corporate activity in the global market; research on the behaviour of corporations in global markets; providing consultations on the subject matter to ECOSOC and Member States; and developing cooperation programmes relevant to transnational corporations.
The central task on the agenda of the UNCTC was the drafting of the United Nations Code of Conduct on Transnational Corporations (the Code of Conduct). Negotiations over the Code of Conduct were heavily policed by economically powerful actors – the UNCTC didn't table a draft until 1983, nearly a decade after its establishment.
Fierce opposition from business, liberal economists, and Western mainstream media, combined with the weakening of the Third World's bargaining position thanks to the debt crisis, oil glut and the onslaught of the Thatcher and Reagan regimes meant that the draft Code of Conduct languished at the UNCTC. Despite successive revisions to make the Code of Conduct more favourable to Capitalist interests – essentially making it an instrument aimed at encouraging foreign investment – the draft Code was formally abandoned in 1992. The UNCTC itself lasted only another year, when it was transferred in 1993 to the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva, where it was implemented by UNCTAD's Division on Investment, Technology and Enterprise Development as the Programme on Transnational Corporations.
This archive was born out of an encounter at the fringes of the UN Treaty Talks on Business and Human Rights with one of the former employees of the UNCTC, Harris Gleckman, who generously offered to share a trove of UNCTC documents. The archive seeks to draw attention to the rich work of the UNCTC not as the story of an inevitable failure, nor as the history of a heroic victory, but as a potential resource for contemporary struggles.
The archive is a collaboration between the Laureate Program in Global Corporations and International Law at Melbourne Law School, Dr. André Dao at Melbourne Law School, Dr. Shahd Hammouri at Kent Law School, and Harris Gleckman, former UNCTC staff member. Research assistance was provided by Debaranjan Goswami and the Melbourne Law School Research Service.
To search the archive, please use the search icon in the top right hand corner of this site. Alternatively, you can browse the publications by document type and decade below.
| Documents for the Commission on Transnational Corporations | 1973-79 | 1980 - 1989 | 1990 - 1993 |
|---|---|---|---|
| UNCTC Sales Publications | 1973-79 | 1980 - 1989 | 1990 - 1993 |
Wide view of the meeting of the Commission on Transnational Corporations held today at United Nations Headquarters. Left to right are: Konstantin Batyguine, Assistant Director, Information Service, UN Centre on Transnational Corporation (UNCTC); Samuel K.B. Asante, Director, Advisory & Information Services Division, (UNCTC); Peter Hansen, Executive Director of UNCTC; James Victor Gbeho (Ghana), Chairman; Valeri Ivanovich Yudin, Secretary; Julian J. Gomez, Director, Policy Analysis & Research Division, UNCTC; and Fernando de Mello Barreto (Brazil), Rapporteur. Photo credit: UN Photo/Saw Lwin.
A list of documents leading to the establishment of the UNCTC is available here.
The central task on the agenda of the UNCTC was the drafting of the United Nations Code of Conduct on Transnational Corporations. Draft Codes, and other documents relating to the negotiations over the Code, can be found here.
A list of secondary sources on the UNCTC is available here.
A series of video interviews with UNCTC staff are available here.
Klaus SAHLGREN (3rd from right), newly appointed Executive Director of the UN Centre on Transnational Corporations is seen as he met with a group from the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. 3 December 1975.