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August 8th, 2017 
admin International commercial law.(Corporate social responsibility issues in business and law.)
Websites:
http://www.business-humanrights.org
http://www.realizingrights.org
http://www.ohchr.org
http://ec.europa.eu/social
http://www.oecd.org
http://www.ilo.org
https://learning.westminster.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/pid-872211-dt-content-rid-2738189_1/xid-2738189_1
What does CSR cover? Why is the concept of CSR so difficult to define? Would a historical perspective help, i.e. would ‘where we come from’ help us
understand ‘where we are going to,’ with respect to this concept?
Who are the actors of the CSR movement – the stakeholders – and what are their interests? Are their interest compatible with shareholders’ interests?
To what extent can CSR be embedded into the business decision making process?
Reading materials
C. PEDAMON, Corporate social responsibility: a new approach to promoting integrity and responsibility, The Company Lawyer, 31(6), 172- 180 (2010),
for an oversview of CSR issues.
T. CAMPBELL, The normative grounding of corporate social responsibility: a human rights approach (uploaded), for a definition of CSR in Chapter II.
KPMG International Survey of Corporate Responsibility Reporting 2008 (uploaded), whose purpose is “to track reporting trends in the world’s largest
companies.”
What are the relevant provisions dealing with stakeholders’ interests? Please read Sections 172 and 417 of the Companies Act 2006. Could you find
equivalent provisions in the legislation of your home country?
Reading materials:
1. Milton Friedman’s essay, ‘The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its profits’ in New York Times Magazine (uploaded)
2. SALAZAR and HUSTED, Principals and Agents: Further Thoughts on the Friedmanite – critique of Corporate Social Responsibility in The Oxford
Handbook of Corporate Social Responsibility at 137
3 – CAMPBELL and VICK (uploaded), Disclosure law and the market for corporate social responsibility
4. KURUCZ, COLBERT and WHEELER, The Business Case for Corporate Social Responsibility, in The Oxford Handbook of Corporate Social Responsibility at
83
Also supplementary reading materials:
1 – BOTTOMLEY and FORSYTH, The new corporate law : CSR and employees’ interests
2 – AMANN et al. (uploaded) , Shareholder activism for CSR: law and practice in the US, Japan, France and Spain — this is meant to show another face
of the shareholder position in the CSR debate. It will allow you, among others, to explore the issues of shareholder as impediment vs. shareholder as
support to CSR.
Certain industries are controversial per se (i.e. Tobacco industry, arms dealing,…). How can companies in controversial sectors be socially
responsible? What does it mean to be a (socially) “responsible” business?
1(a) British American Tobacco (BAT) Code of Conduct
Check the BAT Sustainability report 2013 (available on their website) and think of the following questions either defending BAT’s CSR practices or
criticising them:
a. Has BAT embedded CSR policies into its business decision making process? Is this a “responsible” business?
b. What are the claims made against BAT’s CSR practices? How does BAT answer to these claims? To what extent CSR reports and codes of conduct can
change business practice?
c. Would you agree that the more harmful the product, the more CSR committed the company become?
I have uploaded three alternative reports but visit the web and site like http://www.ash.org.uk/ for additional information that criticises BAT’s CSR
practices. I have also uploaded the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) – first treaty negotiated under the
auspices of the WHO – which sets the international context for this code.
1 (b) BAE Systems Code of Conduct
The BAE Systems’ Code of Conduct has been drafted quite recently following the recommendations of the Woolf Committee, an independent committee, in
its report dealing with the company’s ethical policies and processes
How has the company implemented these recommendations and what has been the structural changes adopted to embed these CSR practices and monitor the
compliance with the recommendations?
To what extent have these changes affected the company’s conduct of business?
BAE Systems Code of Conduct is accessible on their website http://www.baesystems.com/index.htm and http://www.baesystems.com/CorporateResponsibility/
2. Case study of a code of conduct or CSR (or integrated) report of your choice
To help you prepare for your presentation, answer the following questions:
What are the CSR policies and standards used in the code of conduct or report you have chosen? What are the company’s motives behind the adoption?
To what extent has the company embedded CSR practices in its decision-making process?
What is the nature of these codes of conduct or reports? Do they create moral or legal obligations? Please refer to Carol Glinski’s article that has
been uploaded.
To what extent has this code of conduct or mandatory reporting changed the way this company does business, or at least the way this company is
perceived as doing business?
(1) Are these benchmarks sufficient to influence and change the way companies do business? Who benefits from these initiatives and what are their
drawbacks?
(2) What are the enforcement mechanisms in place?
(3) Overall how ‘successful’ have these initiatives been?
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