8.2 Role of TNCs in International Trade

The trade's carriers: the TNCs conduct a dominant share of world trade — including the INTRA-FIRM trade (the affiliates trading within the enterprise's own network: the components crossing borders inside one firm — the trade statistics' hidden story); The investment-and-technology channel: the FDI (foreign direct investment) as the trade's twin (the production moving, not just the goods); the technology transfer; the management practices' spread; The global value chains' organiser: the TNC as the chain's designer (the design in one country, the components in others, the assembly in a third — Unit 1's supply-chain world made by TNCs); The critiques (the honest list): the transfer-pricing problem (the affiliates' prices — the tax base's flight, LAW 309's concern); the sovereignty's challenge (the state's regulation vs. the giant's mobility); the race-to-the-bottom's fear (the labour-and-environment standards — the social clause debates of Unit 9's world); the developing countries' bargaining weakness; The governance attempts: the UN Code of Conduct on TNCs (the 1970s-80s attempt — the failure); the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (the voluntary, the national contact points' machinery); the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (the modern baseline — the due-diligence duty); the WTO-and-FTA disciplines touching the TNCs' practices.