Ruth Dennehy
Position Paper
Office of The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Globalization and Human Rights – Peru
Globalization and human rights focuses on the exploitation of workers and their
right as workers. Multinational Corporations or MNCs are companies that have factories
and run in more than one country. This reduces the tax that would normally be put on
imported goods. These MNCs control one fourth of world production. The location can
lower production cost and thus they are very common in developing countries. These
developing countries also have less labor laws and are not concerned with the working
conditions. If a developing country does speak against these very influential companies in
the future their economy may suffer for it. Therefore many countries do not speak against
any injustices. However the argument is that a multinational corporation will pay their
employees more than other places where these people would work. Yet, the minimum
wage is far below what it should be because it allows a competitive economy which other
nations will invest in. Although there are guidelines for MNCs to follow very few
actually do. The developing countries are unable to criticize the MNCs because they help
and provide a stable economy. The developing countries are afraid that they will lose
their financial support which they need. Multinational Corporations are able to run very
inexpensively which would be good if it did not cause worker exploitation.
Latin America and the Caribbean are both popular spots for Multinational
Corporations currently. The MNCs aid the economy of these developing countries. They
allow foreign investment which helps to stabilize a very instable economy in these
developing countries. The most recent example of this is Mexico. Mexico’s minimum
wage dropped and the MNCs took advantage of this. This is what is happening in many
Latin American countries. Peru faces the same problem as the other Latin American
Countries. The government knows something must be done but they also need the money
provided by the MNCs. The country needs the financial support that is a result of the
MNCs thusly they do not want to strongly oppose them or demand certain rights. The
government then has to decide if their people’s rights can outweigh the good the MNC
can do for the government. Peru is heading in the right direction because slowly they are
trying to give their workers some rights. Nonetheless Peru still has a long way to go to
give their people all of the rights they deserve. Peru is like the many other developing
countries and is afraid to challenge the MNCs to the point where they feel they should
leave Peru because it is too much trouble. Another problem is if there is only one country
that tries to stand up and demand the workers rights the MNCs can always go to another
developing country that is near by and have the same outcome. Therefore that one
country will lose the financial aid. Peru has to work in unison with the other Latin
American countries, and the Caribbean in order to provide a better work standard and put
pressure on the MNCs as a whole to do provide better work conditions.
Bibliography
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