Abstract
Companies increasingly promise to respect widely recognized labour and social standards, mostly referring to well-established international standards in this field. This commitment can create a hard law effect of an originally soft law commitment. While there are key drivers behind this development such as customer and investor requirements or risks of brand-damage, companies have begun to broaden their business perspective: they seek ‘shared value’ for the company and the society when respecting international labour standards, thereby building valuable social and human capital that represents an important element of business success and resilience. This short contribution aims to shed some light on this phenomenon of private regulation as part of transnational regulation, its drivers, and the sustainability management approach.
This article is issued at the responsibility of the author alone, and does not reflect views of her professional work context. I am grateful to Nazli Aghazadeh for her kind and knowledgeable support.
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Notes
- 1.
Schwalbach and Klink (2015), pp. 178 et seq.
- 2.
The widespread term ‘Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)’ that can be related to this business approach has been interpreted in numerous ways and put into a broad variety of business concepts, including, for example, the CSR definition of the European Union, see European Commission (2011) A renewed EU strategy 2011–2014 for Corporate Social Responsibility, COM(2011) 681, p. 6. The term CSR can thus hardly be converged to one common definition or approach (see on the variety of approaches Schwartz and Carroll (2003), p. 503 and on CSR as a continuously developing concept Schneider (2015), p. 23). The strength of the term is, however, that it groups and explains on the basis of all its interpretations most business activities related to socially responsible behavior and activities, and can thus be seen as some kind of general superscription to those activities. See on CSR and social/human capital building Habisch and Schwarz (2015), pp. 113 et seq.
- 3.
Porter and Kramer (2011), p. 6.
- 4.
Report of the Special Representative of the Secretary, Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy’ Framework, UN Human Rights Council, A/HRC/17/31, 21 March 2011.
- 5.
OECD (2011).
- 6.
ILO (2017).
- 7.
See Blackett (2001), pp. 406 et seq.
- 8.
See as an example on this issue the ‘Accountability for Sustainability’ Initiative by the Prince of Wales, https://www.accountingforsustainability.org/. Accessed 12 Oct 2016 and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), https://www.globalreporting.org/. Accessed 9 Aug 2017. In terms of company practice see KPMG (2012).
- 9.
See for example EU Parliament and Council Directive 2014/95/EU amending Directive 2013/34/EU as regards disclosure of non-financial and diversity information by certain large undertakings and groups, O.J. L 330/1 (2014).
- 10.
See on possible legal consequences of ‘soft commitments’ Johnsen and Ramadori (2016).
- 11.
- 12.
SAI that established the wide spread standard Social Accountability (SA) 8000 that serves as a basis for certification, see http://www.sa-intl.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.ViewPage&pageId=1689. Accessed 12 Oct 2016.
- 13.
See http://www.fairlabor.org/. Accessed 12 Oct 2016.
- 14.
Under conditions of severe poverty people are dependent on anything they can get to survive. This allows for conditions of exploitation and human rights abuse such as child labour, excessive working hours and overtime, no living wage, sexual abuse, harassment and violence, or careless exposition to hazards and toxic substances. For an exemplary analysis of labour conditions related to the electronic industry in China, see China Labor Watch (2012).
- 15.
Examples of quickly growing platforms that support companies in monitoring these requirements: SEDEX, http://www.sedexglobal.com/; Together for Sustainability (TfS), http://tfs-initiative.com/; Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI), http://www.bsci-intl.org/ and ECOVADIS, http://www.ecovadis.com/. All accessed 12 Oct 2016.
- 16.
White (2015).
- 17.
See for more information http://www.sustainability-indices.com/. Accessed 12 Oct 2016.
- 18.
See for more information https://www.unpri.org/. Accessed 12 Oct 2016.
- 19.
See for more information http://equator-principles.com/. Accessed 12 Oct 2016.
- 20.
See IFC (2012).
- 21.
See for more information http://www.agaportal.de/. Accessed 12 Oct 2016.
- 22.
- 23.
See for example BASF (2015).
- 24.
Porter and Kramer (2011), p. 6.
- 25.
Doyé (2016).
- 26.
See the G4 Sustainability Reporting Guidelines, https://www.globalreporting.org/information/g4/Pages/default.aspx. Accessed 12 Oct 2016.
- 27.
See for example BASF (2013).
- 28.
Doyé (2016).
- 29.
Ibid.
- 30.
See http://www.iso.org/iso/home/standards/iso26000.htm. Accessed 12 Oct 2016.
- 31.
See https://www.unglobalcompact.org/. Accessed 12 Oct 2016.
- 32.
See ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and its Follow-up, International Labour Conference, adopted on 18 June 1998 and Annex revised 15 June 2010.
- 33.
See ILO (2017).
- 34.
See for example the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. On the occasion of their 2011 review, a Human Rights Chapter was included in the Guidelines that correspond to the UN Guiding Principles and explicitly refers to these, see OECD (2011), p. 31.
- 35.
- 36.
- 37.
- 38.
Blackett (2001), p. 421.
- 39.
Blackett (2001), p. 434.
- 40.
See with respect to roles of rules and principles in law Gehne (2011), pp. 200 et seq. and 297 et seq.
- 41.
See with respect to the limits of transnational governance institutions, theoretical underpinnings of mixed approaches to law, and the role of private law in transnational governance Calliess and Zumbansen (2010), pp. 17 and 25.
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Gehne, K. (2018). Soft Standards and Hard Consequences: Why Transnational Companies Commit to Respect International Labour and Social Standards, and How This Relates to Business and Regulation. In: Gött, H. (eds) Labour Standards in International Economic Law. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69447-4_14
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