Voluntary or mandatory: that is (not) the question: linking corporate citizenship to human rights obligations for business

Abstract

"Menschenrechte werden gewöhnlich als exklusiver Verantwortungsbereich von Regierungen wahrgenommen. Mit fortschreitender ökonomischer Globalisierung erweist sich diese Auffassung allerdings zunehmend als unangemessen. Insbesondere in Bezug auf die mächtigen multinationalen Unternehmen führt sie zu einer eklatanten Verantwortungslücke. In diesem Beitrag argumentieren die Verfasser deshalb für verbindliche Menschenrechts-Standards für multinationale Unternehmen und untersuchen, welchen Beitrag auf Freiwilligkeit basierende Konzepte wie Corporate Citizenship und Corporate Social Responsibility zur Klärung von entsprechenden Pflichten von 'Multinationals' machen können - dies speziell in Bezug auf die oft kontingenten Verantwortlichkeiten bezüglich sog. positiven Menschenrechten." (Autorenreferat)

"Human rights have traditionally been considered a domain of governments. The ongoing economic globalization, however, has rendered this state-centered view increasingly inadequate. In this contribution the author's will argue that also the powerful transnational corporations must bear more and more direct responsibility for the impact of their actions on human rights. Florian Wettstein and Sandra Waddock will first clarify the conceptual connection between existing approaches to corporate citizenship (CC) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the newly emerging 'business and human rights' debate. Partly in contradiction to the 'traditional' view on CSR/ CC as a voluntary affair for business, the author's will then plea for mandatory human rights standards for corporations. However, human rights obligations are not always clear-cut and evident; especially so-called positive rights often create contingent and often highly ambiguous duties for many different actors. Therefore, the author's will argue CSR/ CC can make a valuable contribution especially regarding the clarification of such imperfect obligations. Accordingly, the relation between voluntary and mandatory approaches must not be seen as a mutually exclusive one, but rather as inherently complementary." (author's abstract)