ABSTRACT
Transnational labor regulation is a good example of fragmentation. It could be the practice in the name of international convention or declaration, or unilateral measures and treaties from some developed countries, where states are objects of regulation. It also takes the form of guidelines, tripartite declaration, and global compact, which directly regulate multinational enterprises. It even appears as voluntary promises of multinational enterprises, such as corporate codes of conduct and global framework agreements. Traditional state-targeted public regulation with strict requirements from international labor conventions, unilateral measures and treaties by some developed countries, has fallen into difficulties in solving transnational labor problems, and is deconstructing itself. A new regulation framework dominated by public soft arrangements from international governmental organizations and states, is being constructed.
Basic regulation elements implied in the theory of reflexive law are as follows: firstly, public hard arrangements should be restrained from using; secondly, the law shall have the courage to experiment and learn; thirdly, private selfregulation shall be encouraged and guided; fourthly, the law shall focus on structuring and restructuring internal discourse and external coordination. This can be applied to transnational labor regulation. Since roots of transnational labor problems lie in self-benefiting expansion of transnational economy subsystem, where multinational enterprises are the subjects of major interest, the main task of transnational labor regulation is to make the external pressures work towards guiding the self-regulation of multinational enterprises. Then the reflexive regulation framework could be depicted as a pyramid model, where the self-regulation of multinational enterprises sits at the base, and will play the fundamental role. The upper floors are external pressures that drive multinational enterprises into self regulation.
On the roof of the pyramid sits the public hard regulation, who will work with minimum sufficiency principle. International Labour Organisation is capable for this role with the support of states. The first floor from the top stands for statedtargeted public regulation, mainly in the form of soft arrangements; only in extremely rare cases will hard regulation be exerted（the roof）. Its main task is to promote states to ratify and implement domestically eight core labor conventions. This minimal compatibility will be activated when the expansion of transnational economy subsystem has led to serious systematic violation of fundamental labor rights in one country. The second floor from the top represents public regulation targeting multinational enterprises, all in the form of soft arrangements. The third floor from the top sits non-governmental organizations including trade unions. The second and third floor from the top work closely as external pressures. It is from the public soft arrangements targeting multinational enterprises that non-governmental organizations gain complaining right as well as authoritative discourse of labor right and platform for dialogue and supervision. Therefore, non-governmental organizations are empowered to urge multinational enterprises into self-regulation.
This dissertation is composed of three parts, i. e. Introduction, the Main Text and Conclusion.
The Introduction will explain research topic, research question, research justification, and research methodology and research structure.
The Main Text includes six chapters. Chapter one focuses on the relevance between the research question, i. e. reconstruction of transnational labor regulation, and the research methodology, i. e. the theory of reflexive law. Traditional mode of state-targeted transnational labor regulation, which is dominated by international governmental organizations and some developed countries, has suffered difficulties. Obviously, the Reform of the traditional regulation mode is a matter of how to change rather than whether to change. Since the gist in reconstructing the traditional regulation mode, i. e. the relationship between public and private regulators, between hard and soft arrangements, are topics of reflexive law theo ry, this theory can be a useful tool to analyze the crux and seek the solution. Chapter two, three and four provide main arguments for the deconstruction of the traditional regulation mode. In this part, extent of reflexive rationality in the regulation practice of international governmental organizations, some developed countries and private entities including multinational enterprises and non-governmental organizations are analyzed. It can be seen that the traditional regulation mode is under self-deconstruction and a new framework which is dominated by public soft arrangements and private regimes is being reconstructed. Chapter five delivers the author's main opinion based on the former four chapters. It answers how to reconstruct a new regulation mode that is based on reflexive rationality, and provides solutions for problems to be solved before completion of the reconstruction. Chapter six is an outreach of the main opinion to the case of China. It Provides an insight on what significance the new reflexive regulation framework will have for China, what role China shall play, and how to respond to China's current challenges.
The Conclusion is a summarization of the dissertation with seven groups of antonymous words, including essential vs. peripheral, private vs. public, soft vs. hard, states as subjects vs. states as objects, deconstruction vs. reconstruction, ideality vs. reality, internationalization vs. localization. Further research is needed as to the reconstruction of the transnational labor regulation.
Key Words: Transnational Labor Regulation; Reconstruction of Regime;Reflexive Law