The Multinational Enterprise and Legal Control: Host State Sovereignty in an Era of Economic Globalization

This long-awaited new book from Cynthia Day Wallace picks up the thread of her best-selling Legal Control of the Multinational Enterprise: National Regulatory Techniques and the Prospects for International Controls. In the present work she applies herself to legal and pragmatic aspects of control surrounding MNE operations. The primary focus is on legal and administrative techniques and measures practised by host states to control – transparently or less so – foreign MNE activity within their territories, or even extraterritorially when effects are felt within national boundaries. The primary geographic focus is the six most investment-intensive industrialized states (namely,Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom). At the same time an important message of the present study is precisely the implication for the developing countries as well as for the emerging market economies of central and eastern Europe - and even Asian nations besides Japan, because it is the sharing of this very ‘experience of years’ that can best serve to facilitate a fuller participation on the part of the up-and-coming economies in the same global market place.

'This welcomed second edition is much longer [than] the original, and for good cause.
Multinationals participate in a far greater range of activities than ever before, especially in the context of the "G word" globalization. These enterprises pit the very notion of capitalism against the reality that these oligarchic entities can be overly focused on the short-term benefits of producing wealth, without ample consideration of the long-term costs. This is a well-written and well-documented product, both comprehensive in its analysis and richly adorned with further research venues. It is replete with examples in the concrete settings of key national experiences....Many have scratched the surface which masks the various faces of "globalization". This comprehensive analysis finally provides a one-volume resource
for assessing the full range of issues associated with the so-called globalization phenomenon.'
American Society of International Law Newsletter, 2002.