And yet there are at least some options of companies doing the right thing, or trying to do so. See Fairphone and Shiftphone for examples.

Totally agree. But that comes at the expense of profit. Big public companies who claim they are there only to make money for shareholders won’t do that.

Which is sickening. We need some sort of heavy handed regulation that stipulates that labor up and down the supply chain of a given American company conforms to American labor protections. We also need this regulation to be backed by consequence which would directly harm the lives of those individuals who directly decide to eschew these regulations.

I think we can stand to hold executives far more accountable for them deciding to commit human rights abuses via casual email or shareholder memo, some 3000 miles out of sight and out of mind from the crimes themselves.

These sort of regulations would be very painful for the economy in the near term, but far less painful than continuing the status quo for those being abused.

“These sort of regulations would be very painful for the economy in the near term, “

I am not even sure about that. Companies would adapt very quickly. That’s what they are good at.

You wouldn't think that if you listened to what these neocons have been preaching as scripture for the past 50 years...

You have a very nuanced and insightful perspective, thank you for educating and sharing!

i sure hope thats sarcasm. he just threw out random thoughts with no actual way to achieve anything. laws cant actually to force multinational companies to do anything. how would they be enforced after all?

you'd first need a world government for any laws to apply. and no chance of that happening within the foreseeable future.

You can force multinational corporations to do things by not allowing them into your own market if they don’t follow certain rules. The US does it all the time, so does Europe.

> The US does it all the time, so does Europe.

Please give me an example of a corporation getting serious issues from any government for actions they took on foreign soil.

Companies have got into trouble for violating sanctions. There are plenty of examples for that.

GDPR is a huge one every user of this site should know.

GDPR is a law, not a corporation and is a recent attempt at enforcing something, and spectacularly failed at that.

Almost all eu-foreign enterprises ignore it entirely or don't actually adhere to it, even after showing a big pop-up claiming they do.

And the multinational corporations just started to hide their tracking better. For an obvious example: chrome includes a 24 bit unique identifier per installation to track you and instead of saving your PII they just build a nrr to "predict" them. Such a success, indeed.

What’s your exact point? Are you trying to say that laws don’t work and nothing can be done so it shouldn’t be tried? I don’t understand what you are trying to say.

Turkey can’t enter the EU because it doesn’t meet the EU’s standard for human rights. Standards work.

Turkey isnt a multinational corporation in case you didn't notice.

Nor did they change because of it, so your point makes no sense whatsoever

What kind of law will help? A law that forbids trade with bad states?

Shopping will be hard after that ...

I'm sure things were a little rocky for the cotton industry in 1865 too...

Exactly that law.

Alright, but you know, that quite some people would add the US to that list, too?

You know, private operated prisons, starting wars, torturing, kidnapping, dronestriking around the world called "extrajucidal killing" etc. etc. etc.

This world is not a simple one, so I doubt simple laws can change basic flaws.

> Alright, but you know, that quite some people would add the US to that list, too?

> You know, private operated prisons, starting wars, torturing, kidnapping, dronestriking around the world called "extrajucidal killing" etc. etc. etc.

Sure, and you know what? If that were ever the justification for trade restrictions with the US, it’d be well deserved.

I’d prefer if we as a country took the moral high ground, but in the absence of that, some pressure from outside could be a good thing.

Hm. But pressure from whom?

Russia, india, brasil, pakistan? Probably not ...

The EU? Well, we have for example this glorious law that mainly because of the holocaust, we don't kick people out who come asking for help and have no other safe place to go. But since we don't actually want them, we pay and support other dictators and warlords to keep them away from us, so they cannot ask for help in the first place and we punish people who rescue those wrong people from drowning, when they dare to take them to a safe place where they ask for help.

So who is left?

Switzerland? Maybe, but they for example had never a problem with taking all the dirty money and doing buusness with anyone, as long as its money.

This world is not black and white, but yeah, there surely are places which are a lot darker and if we believe to be in a lighter place, we can't feel superior if our wealth is based on those very dark places.