Emerging-Market multinationals, human rights, and sustainable development: Lessons from the Canadian experience

This paper will explore the dynamics of home State policies and practices relating to multinational enterprises in the extractive industries. The paper will first outline the Canadian experience, with a view to understanding the potential relationship between home State regulation and international frameworks. The content of the international corporate social responsibility (CSR) frameworks referenced in the Canadian context will also be examined. Second, the paper will explore the extent to which the international CSR frameworks that Canada has chosen to promote to extractive sector companies might also be appropriate frameworks for emerging market economies and their multinational enterprises to endorse. This part will ask whether and to what extent emerging market countries have participated in the creation of these frameworks, such that these frameworks could be viewed as legitimate standards for an emerging market country to apply to both domestic and international operations of their enterprises.