Commission on TNCs discusses coproate activities in southern Africa, code of conduct at April sessions.

• Position: Transnational corporations

Commission on TNCs discusses corporate activities in southern Africa, Code of Conduct at April sessions

Detailed discussions of the activities of transnational corporations (TNCs) in southern Africa and continued efforts to reach agreement on a code of conduct on TNCs were the major focus of sessions of the Commission on Transnational Corporations held in April.

The body, at its twelfth regular session (9-18 April, New York), recommended action by the Economic and Social Council on three draft resolutions--dealing with collaboration with South Africa in the nuclear, military and economic fields; activities of the United Nations Centre on TNCs; and ongoing and future research. In reviewing TNC activities in South Africa and Namibia, it also examined responsibilities of home countries with respect to TNCs operating in southern Africa in violation of United Nations decisions.

Recommendations emanating from the public hearings on TNCs conducted by the Panel of Eminent Persons (New York, September 1985) were also considered extensively. Those include calls for a ban on nuclear co-operation with South Africa; disinvestment by all corporations in the military, police and security sectors; no new investments by TNCs in South Africa; strengthening of the arms embargo and imposition of a mandatory oil embargo; and complete desegregation of all work-related facilities.

The Commission on 14 April briefly reconvened its special session, which had met the last time in January to determine how to continue its work. The Commission recommended that the General Assembly authorize another special session "at an appropriate time' to continue work on the code, which is expected to provide the only comprehensive multilateral framework for TNCs.

Negotiations on the Code began in 1977. One of the main remaining points of divergence in the code negotiations is the relevance of international law or obligations to the application of the code.

The text, put forward by the Group of 77, also called on the Council to condemn South Africa's "brutal perpetuation of the inhuman system of apartheid' and its "illegal occupation of Namibia'. Continued activities of TNCs in South Africa and Namibia and their collaboration with the racist regime of Pretoria "perpetuates the system of apartheid and the illegal occupation of Namibia', the text stated. All States, United Nations organizations and bodies, non-governmental organizations and TNCs, banks and financial institutions would be urged to implement the recommendations of the Panel of Eminent Persons.

The Secretariat was to be asked to continue its "useful work' on the activities of TNCs in South Africa and Namibia through collection and dissemination of information, and to provide more detailed information on the profile of TNCs operating in South Africa and Namibia.

The draft on the activities of the Centre on TNCs, approved without a vote, contained preambular paragraphs, which, among other things, referred to the "growing interdependence of issues and the role of enterprises engaged in transnational operations, regardless of form or nature of ownership and country of origin, with due regard...