"The State of CSR in the United States"--Workshop on Corporate Social Responsibility and Regulation: Comparative Perspectives, City University of Hong Kong

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2015)

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.  

The Workshop was notable for a number of reasons.  First, it is becoming clear that the traditional approaches to CSR, and to the discursive language of business and human rights, are proving increasingly ill fitting within the environment of states in which the middle and lower levels of production chains are situated.  That makes the job of civil society, labor, and even of business and governmental officials that much harder.  Harder still is the choice that civil society, international organizations, and business are studiously avoiding--the need to embed issues of corporate social responsibility--of the full social, economic, and cultural costs of business activity on the financial performance of companies.  

For civil society this has been unacceptable because it suggests that human rights can be costed, and built into risk assessments of business--that business might be free to make the determination that human rights wrongs may be acceptable when its costs (even when fully paid) are less than the profit that might be made.  That is impossible for organizations that have staked their projects on the notion that rights may not be compromised (and that compensation is a weak and dangerous invitation to degrading human dignity).  

For business the possibility of incorporating the costs of human rights wrongs, the possibility of fully costing corporate social responsibility within its financial statements (staring perhaps with their statements of income) is likely viewed with equal horror.  Regularization of CSR within the accounting of business activity would finally expose the full costs of CSR failures--or worse expose the way that governments have foisted costs of corporate activity onto society--that the failure of incorporating CSR into accounting standards constitutes one of the greatest hidden subsidies of corporate activity which is borne by taxpayers. 

For intergovernmental organizations the possibility of embedding the human rights risks of business behavior appears central to the Guiding Principle for Business and Human Rights.  Yet it suggests that the second pillar corporate responsibility to respect human rights--and its grounding in business custom, societal normative structures and the discipline of market risks and reputation--can be more effective than the traditional structures of law.  The old system--one based on territoriality constituted political states issuing commands in the form of regulations and statutes  appears as useful as a horse drawn carriage on the autobhan. And yet, beyond the Guiding Principles, and the OECD's efforts through its Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, appears to be all they know. But that focus provides as much a means of avoiding human rights obligations as it permits companies to continue to avoid shouldering the true costs of the production by evading their CSR responsibilities. 

The Workshop program follows below.

My presentation,  The State of CSR in the United States touches on the points I raised above.  The PowerPoints of that presentation can be accessed here.

Workshop on Corporate Social Responsibility and Regulation: Comparative Perspectives

Venue: Conference Room (P5401), School of Law, City University of Hong Kong Date: Monday, 14 December 2015

Final Programme

9:30AM-11:00AM – SESSION I: COMPARATIVE AND INTERNATIONAL CSR REGULATORY TRENDS
Moderator: Surya Deva, Associate Professor, School of Law, CityU 

Lead Discussants:
 Karin Buhmann, Associate Professor, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
 Larry Catá Baker, Professor of Law and International Affairs, Penn State University, US
 David Birchall, PhD Candidate, School of Law, CityU

11:00AM-11:30AM – TEA/COFFEE

11:30AM-1:00PM – SESSION II: CSR REGULATORY TRENDS IN MAINLAND CHINA AND HONG KONG
Moderator: Larry Catá Baker, Professor of Law, Penn State University, US

Lead Discussants:
 Lowell Chow, East Asia Researcher & Representative, Business and Human Rights Resource Centre

 Joshua Rosenzweig, Consultant, Amnesty International HK
 Surya Deva, Associate Professor, School of Law, CityU

1:00PM-2:30PM – LUNCH


2:30PM-4:00PM – SESSION III: CIVIL SOCIETY PERSPECTIVES ON CSR
Moderator: Karin Buhmann, Associate Professor, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark

Lead Discussants:
 William Nee, Amnesty International HK
 Valérie Nichols, China Labour Bulletin  Ka Wai Chan, Labour Action China
 Wong Shek Hung, Oxfam HK
 Charissa Ho, Community Business 4:00PM-4:30AM – TEA/COFFEE

4:30PM-6:00PM – SESSION IV: COLLABORATIVE CSR RESEARCH AND TEACHING – NEED AND THE WAY FORWARD
Moderator: Surya Deva, Associate Professor, School of Law, CityU Lead Discussants:

 Farzana Aslam, Principal Lecturer, Faculty of Law, HKU
 Bill Taylor, Associate Professor, Department of Public and Social Administration, CityU
 Mimi Zou, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, CUHK (via Skype from Sydney)
 Nadira Lamrad, PhD Candidate, CityU

6:30PM – DINNER