While watching the online lecture, one question really stuck with me. How do we hold corporations accountable? Seeing as corporations are private actors, is it even possible to hold them accountable? I believe that it is extremely difficult to hold corporations accountable without a central institution of which all corporations are a part of. With the absence of such a central institution, it is up to consumers, and sometimes states, to hold these corporations accountable, even with what limited ability they may have.
One small way they can be held accountable is by states. If a corporation over steps its authority, or if it increases the costs of its goods and services, the state can then decide to impose sanctions on that corporation through tariffs, or by simply not choosing to import or use goods from that company. Instead, the state could look into the production of the goods within its borders. However, I do not think this is likely in the current environment as this could cause prices to increase, and negatively affect the state's economy. Therefore, I find that it is difficult to hold these corporations accountable in the current state of globalization.
It should be noted that there is an organization that seeks to promote fair trade, the World Trade Organization, but this institution holds states accountable on an intergovernmental level for their policies, not corporations. In addition, the WTO can also benefit corporations by the host country taking up its case if another state imposes tough restrictions on that company's products, that would increase the cost of the product. This does occur, it appears now more than ever, if a country's economy relies on the export of the company's goods. This process is only truly holding countries accountable, and not corporations, therefore making it a poor argument for the existence of corporation accountability.
The only way a corporation can truly be held accountable is by its customers. If a corporation participates in appalling actions such as raising prices exponentially, unhumanitarian processes, or even environmentally damaging practices, consumers can decide not to purchase goods from that corporation. If enough consumers boycott the corporation, this could then force it to change its practices. This strategy will not always prove effective however, because there is often a domination of one corporation in a particular market, leaving consumers no choice but to continue to buy goods from that corporation.
https://auisgroup1summer18.blogspot.com/2018/07/corporations-and-their-lack-of.html
I disagree with the notion that multinational corporations cannot be held accountable to the sovereignty of states, and I believe that recent EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) legislation is proving that to be true. GDPR legislation punishes those not in compliance with the new data privacy regulations with fines to be leavied against boardmembers and CEOs of organizations, and essentially refuse to identify corporations as individuals, but rather a collection of individuals. Not only does it seek to punish executives over the corporate entity themselves, but it also has the buy in from many significant non EU states such as Singapore, Japan, and the US who have all made agreements in some capacity to recognize this regulation and it's authority when corporations in their respective states process EU citizens' personal data.
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