The investor responsability to respect the environment under the OECD Guidelines for multinational entreprises

Abstract

This thesis studies the topic of Investor Responsibility to Respect the Environment Under the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. It explores how investors must be responsible for their actions when making an investment. The paper discusses the enforceability of the guidelines as a fot law instrument having found that as a guideline with a grievance mechanism, it is an instrument of soft law with hard consequences. Investor responsibility is a serious matter as investors are equally responsible for the projects they fund and must partake in the action to ensure that the side effects do not happen, hence, the mechanism for due diligence set in the OECD Guidelines is so important, as it is not only a mechanism for anticipating but an ongoing mechanism, that allows investors to continuously mitigate and prevent risks. This paper also delves into the topic of National Contact Points as a grievance mechanism and the Investment Committee and explains, with case studies, how National Contact Points work. It concludes that investors must perform their due diligence when investing in order to avoid being equally responsible for adverse environmental effects and that National Contact Points, as a grievance mechanism for a soft law instrument aids in compliance of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.