Article by Claire Moore Dickerson
The conduct of many multinational corporations suggests that corporate social responsibility means more than profit maximization. These companies are refraining from corrupt practices, are adopting minimum standards for treatment of workers, and are providing certain drugs at below-market prices. The changes in behavior reflect both the corporations' growing acceptance of responsibility toward more than shareholders, and their respect for the power of the collective, even when composed of individually vulnerable persons. Further, whatever the motive for these changes, the actual behavior has social influence.
Meantime, human-rights norms are now evolving toward an increased recognition of the collective as well. Included among the civil and political rights, and the economic, social, and cultural rights, are rights that are most effective when used by a group. The solidarity rights, including the right to development, are a natural culmination of that trend. These norms emerge from the larger society that extends beyond the developed world, and certainly far beyond the corporations' commercial environment. A democratic process of admittedly varying formality and effectiveness creates and legitimates these norms.
The feedback between (1) corporations' conduct in support of the collective and (2) the human-rights norms' move toward the collective, reinforce each other. Thus, the multinationals' behavior becomes more predictably compatible with human-rights norms, while these norms further support the corporations' move toward conduct consistent with human rights. The behavior and the norms, together, reflect a developing notion of corporate social responsibility that concerns the well-being of all those affected by the multinationals, and not only the shareholders.
About the Author
Claire Moore Dickerson. Professor of Law and Arthur L. Dickson Scholar, Rutgers University Law School. A.B. 1971, Wellesley College; J.D. 1974, Columbia University Law School; LL.M. in Taxation 1981, New York University Law School.
Citation
76 Tul. L. Rev. 1431 (2002)