This book studied under which conditions the EU and its Member States influence the accountability of transnational corporations that are based in developing and emerging states for their involvement in human rights violations. Five conclusions are drawn. First, there are identifiable corporate concerns about the competitive threat of such corporations. They form a barrier to strengthening the accountability of EU-based corporations. Second, regulation has been adopted only when the ‘perceived interests’ in the EU and its Member States outweigh these concerns. Such interests are vastly different at the EU level and Member State level. Third, regulators have tried to minimise the impact on the competitiveness of their corporations by ‘extending’ their human rights regulations internationally. Fourth, bilateral agreements contain obligations relating to human rights and can serve to contribute to the creation of a ‘thick’ transnational stakeholder consensus. Local litigation is an important element in this process. Finally, there are valuable options to bring cases against corporations from developing and emerging states in EU Member States courts.

This chapter examines (1) publicly available data on the municipal activities of TNCs culled from their own corporate reports, (2) the powers of local governments enshrined in local laws vis-a-vis the protections of TNCs under international law, (3) public opinion of municipal residents as captured in various surveys, (4) the results of scientific studies, including those that test the chemical composition of fuels sold by TNCs, and (5) those studies that subject the exercise of political power to social scientific analyses.

On these bases, it can be argued that, although they are not accountable to any electorate, transnational corporations (TNCs) in Africa play significant roles in planning and governing cities in Africa. TNCs effectively manage important aspects of African life through control of municipal utilities, through the corporate governance of natural resources held by Africans in common, and through ad hoc investment practices that facilitate the private appropriation of socially created rents.