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Contributions from
the Column
Studies and reports
The last chance: double development aid
Emissions trading:
linking climate protection and development
“We need a firm position”
Gloomy outlook for UN code
Governing globalisation
“The cotton subsidies worsen poverty”
4/2004 |
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[ Corporate human rights standards ]
Gloomy outlook for UN code
“Some of those companies shouting the loudest about their corporate virtues are also among those inflicting continuing damage on communities where they work – particularly poor communities. Governments must now adopt an international set of standards for the behaviour of companies.” For Andrew Pendleton, of the British Christian Aid organisation, the private sector making voluntary commitments to social and environmental standards isn’t a good idea. In a study on the activities of Shell, British American Tobacco and Coca-Cola in developing countries, Pendleton writes the non-binding concept of corporate social responsibility is basically nothing more than a useful tool for big companies that wish to polish up their image.
The UN Commission on Human Rights, which is meeting in Geneva until the end of April, could at least partly fulfil Pendleton’s demands. For the Commission’s agenda includes the draft of a code of conduct for transnational companies, the so-called UN Norms on the Responsibility of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights. A Commission sub-committee formulated the code over several years. It contains human rights, social and environmental standards under international law and demands that the private sector observe them. In addition, it provides for a review process that resembles the one currently applied within the framework of the Human Rights Commission only against states. The code will come into force as soon as the Commission adopts it.
However, the chances are poor that this will happen. “The industrialised nations are against it,” says Christian Tietje, Professor of Commercial Law at the University of Halle. Admittedly, not even the UN code would create binding law. Rather it would be left to the companies to observe the standards. “Nevertheless, the code’s impact should not be underestimated,” Tietje says. “Its adoption by the Human Rights Commission would be a breakthrough. It happens that ‘soft law’, which the code would create, develops into binding legal standards.”
The German government confirms Tietje’s impression. “It is unlikely that the draft will be adopted,” says Jutta Schmitz, of the Foreign Office Human Rights Division, which, on behalf of the Federal Government, is leading the negotiations on the code. She says the Human Rights Commission must “adopt the draft constructively”. But it must first be embedded in the wider debate on corporate social responsibility. However, the form this should take still had to be clarified, Schmitz said.
Christian Aid wants to underpin the ethical self-commitments of companies by binding rules and thus give them “teeth”, says the Pendleton study. “We are advocating a move beyond corporate social responsibility to corporate social accountability.” However, the hopes for a UN code appear unlikely to be fulfilled for the time being. (ell)
Further Information
The Christian Aid study, titled Behind the mask. The real face of CSR, the draft UN code and further information on the subject is on the Internet at:
www.corporate-accountability.org
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