No “Right” of Unrestricted International Trade

Rebeca MacKinnon (see her bio here), of RConversation blog, has provided some of the more incisive and balanced commentary and tracking of the consideration of the responsibility of U.S. companies in their behavior with China’s censorship.

MacKinnon comments:

“It may be arrogant and counterproductive for Americans (or anybody else) to act like we have the perfect system for all to emulate. But as human beings we can and should defend each other's universal human rights. Technology companies have an obligation to defend the legal rights of users worldwide if they want to maintain our trust - and thus our business - over the long run.
I hope that technology companies will do what is clearly in their long-term commercial interest: they should set clear, global standards demonstrating their seriousness about the human rights of the user. They should behave transparently and honestly enough so that we as users can judge whether they can be trusted to adhere to those standards. They shouldn't have to be threatened with punitive legislation. But if legislation must be considered, the requirements must be truly global.”

She points us to this joint declaration of standards for companies to voluntarily adopt from the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Representative on Freedom of the Media, and the Organization of American States’ Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression.

That would be a major step forward. One of MacKinnon’s commenters believes that more is needed and justified:

“Why most American companies will not and can not bribe their ways out in China as their Chinese competitors normally do? Because there is something called ‘Foreign Corrupt Practices Act(FCPA)’. The dire financial & reputational consequences of breaching such a US law prevent most Americans from doing under-the-table tricks which are ubiquitous in China. Do American business suffer? I assume so. Why not a lot of people cry for this?
So the question is really at what price the Amercians, especailly the American government, will hold their moral high ground. Comparing with the billions of dollors the Americans (or at least half of the Americans) are willingly to shed to promote democracy in Middle-east, I do believe the financial consequences of Microsoft or Google or whoever who do not comply with Chinese blackmails will be just peanuts.
Certainly, from any single corporation’s point of view, especially for those with big stake in China, loss of revenue there is an immediate pain. This is why I think the American government should step in, establishing something similar to the FCPA, forbiding US companies from assisting foreign governments to curb any democratic initiatives.”

One can argue ideologically that there should be no government restrictions on the international behavior of US corporations. Or, reductio ad absurdum, that any such action is a slippery slope to statist doom.

However, in the real world, the US government does have a legitimate and legal stake – subject to legitimate and legal restraints -- in the behavior of US corporations, particularly when it affects foreign affairs and affects the US position in the world. US companies can adopt and self-enforce such standards as suggested above, or will find themselves properly restrained by a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act-like legislation.