Daisuke Takahashi on "Japanese Lawyers' Engagement to Avoid the 'Lost in Translation' Effect on Business and Human Rights"

(Daisuke Takahashi )

It was my great pleasure to participate at a Workshop on Corporate Social Responsibility and Regulation: Comparative Perspectives, held at the Law Faculty of the City University of Hong Kong and sponsored by them and the Copenhagen Business School, held December 15, 2015.  (See here for the program).

One of the highlights of the workshop was the discussion about the evolution of CSR in Japan (see, e.g., here).  Daisuke Takahashi's presentation,  "Japanese Lawyers' Engagement to Avoid the 'Lost in Translation' Effect on Business and Human Rights,"provided an excellent discussion of those changes and of the efforts of the Japanese Bar to embed CSR sensibilities in Japanese corporate practice. Mr. Takahashi is the Vice Chair of the CSR Team of the Japanese Federation of Bar Associations (since 2013), and an Expert Committee Member, Japan CSR Promotion Association (since 2012).

Mr. Tahahashi has very kindly given me permission to share his presentation slides.  They follow below. 

As you review the slides that follow, one might focus on both the "Yakuza Elimination Clause" and the "CSR Clause.  Consider as well their utility for the internal governance of enterprises.The first represents an important innovation in ethical operation.  But it represents only a first step--more difficult will be its incorporation into the structures of internal corporate governance.  The second embeds a core objective of global business and human rights efforts--the harmonization and coherence of conduct standards flowing down the production chain.