Comment

Responsibility lite

[ By Dwight W. Justice ]

The Global Compact is subject to increasing criticism from both participating and non-participating organisations. One criticism is that companies benefit from the positive image of their association with the United Nations but are not obliged to do much. This has led to demands that companies prove “compliance” with the Compact’s principles and be subject to independent monitoring and complaint procedures.

This demand is not supported by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) and the other global trade union organisations that chose to participate in the Global Compact. Indeed, before agreeing to participate in this initiative, they sought assurances that it would not become a code of conduct. They did not want the Global Compact to substitute for the more comprehensive OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises which were being revised at the time the Compact was begun. Although the Global Compact principles were based on authoritative international instruments, these standards do not encompass the full range of legitimate expectations concerning what constitutes socially responsible behaviour by business.

Any code of conduct addressing the behaviour of business should transpose principles into practical guidance for companies. One such code is the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) Tripartite Declaration of Principles concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy. This authoritative instrument provides guidance for companies with respect to labour principles of the Compact, but there is less considered guidance available for the other principles.

The trade union experience is that codes of labour practice are poor substitutes for law and collective bargaining. Our concern, therefore, was that the Compact must not give credence to any notion that binding intergovernmental trade and investment agreements intended to protect property rights could ever be balanced by exhortations to business to voluntarily respect human rights.

Globalisation needs global rules but it also needs other global institutions. The positive contribution of the Global Compact lies in its possibility to promote dialogue at the global level among international business, trade unions, NGOs and governments. Dialogue can solve problems and resolve disputes. Unfortunately, to date far too much attention has been devoted to the self promotion of the Corporate Social Responsibility industry and to “show and tell sessions” by companies concerning unilateral management initiatives that had little, if anything, to do with dialogue. Genuine opportunities for dialogue are often bypassed by launching national “networks” without involving the trade unions, representative employer organisations and NGOs that should be involved.

International trade union organisations often receive complaints from affiliated trade union organisations over the behaviour of companies participating in the Global Compact. They therefore support “integrity measures” intended to ensure that serious offenders cannot continue to be associated with the Global Compact. This is not a step toward code implementation, but to keep the initiative, and its promise of a global dialogue over agreed principles, alive.