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E-MailThis post is from Martin Lipton of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.
I have recently distributed a memorandum entitled “A United Nations Proposal Defining Corporate Social Responsibility For Human Rights,” which discusses a report by a Special Representative to the U.N. Secretary-General. The report has broad implications for global business and particularly for companies operating on a global basis, in emerging markets, in underdeveloped countries, or in countries that lack a democratic system. The report, which will be considered in a June session of the U.N. Human Rights Council, proposes that corporations bear the “responsibility to respect human rights,” that the State has a “duty to protect” against human rights abuses by companies, and that both the State and businesses must provide more effective access to remedies for human rights violations. In the memorandum, we explain that the framework recommended to the U.N. could impose on businesses an array of expansive obligations requiring close attention by corporate management and boards. The memorandum sets forth the core principles which the U.N. Human Rights Council may endorse to guide corporate responsibilities for human rights and additionally considers their implications for directors.
The memorandum is available here.
One Comment
Martin Lipton and Kevin Schwartz have made a valuable contribution in exposing the extensive social responsibility obligations of corporations who wish to meet the proposed United Nations standards for protecting Human Rights.
Their analysis is likely to generate a knee jerk rejection by corporate interests.
Instead, corporations should consider how they can accept responsibility for human rights in a way that can also provide them with operating and competitive advantages. To achieve such benefits, corporations need to amend their constitutions so as to transfer the monitoring and evaluation of human rights to those stakeholders whose rights are at risk.
In this way the role, duties and work load of directors can be reduced while establishing political, social and operational support from its stakeholders on who no business can exist without.
A more detailed description of how to square the circle of corporate social responsibility is set out in my submission to the Australian Joint Parliamentary Committee on Corporations and Financial Services inquiry into Corporate Responsibility of November, 2005 on ‘Enhancing Corporate Operations and Social Accountability’ as posted at http://ssrn.com/abstract=800904.