Villiers, Charlotte --- "Corporate Law, Corporate Power and Corporate Social Responsibility" [2008] ELECD 290; in Boeger, Nina; Murray, Rachel; Villiers, Charlotte (eds), "Perspectives on Corporate Social Responsibility" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2008)

Book Title: Perspectives on Corporate Social Responsibility

Editor(s): Boeger, Nina; Murray, Rachel; Villiers, Charlotte

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847205612

Section: Chapter 5

Section Title: Corporate Law, Corporate Power and Corporate Social Responsibility

Author(s): Villiers, Charlotte

Number of pages: 28

Extract:

5. Corporate law, corporate power and
corporate social responsibility
Charlotte Villiers

INTRODUCTION
Can corporate social responsibility (CSR) be an effective solution to the prob-
lems relating to human rights or climate change in which corporations are
involved? Political leaders, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and
consumer campaigners alike, point to the activities of multinational corpora-
tions as a key influence on the world's social and environmental welfare.
Corporate social responsibility is widely viewed as the avenue along which
their activities must be steered. Companies have considerable power. Directly
their activities have an impact on society and on the environment and their
activities have capacity to do damage or create benefits socially and environ-
mentally. The economic power of corporations, especially transnational and
multinational corporations, also brings to them political power enabling them
to influence social and environmental policy and regulation and such power
extends to influencing the lives of individuals. These features of corporate
power are more pronounced where they operate in developing nations whose
governments have comparatively little economic power. Advocates of CSR
assert that corporations are to be made accountable for their activities and for
how they exercise their power and that CSR should lead to corporations
having a positive effect on society and the environment.
Despite increased attention on CSR and claims that CSR has become an
established feature of corporate policy during the last couple of decades,
progress in terms of the effectiveness of such CSR has not been impressive.
The divide between rich and poor ...