Dine, Janet; Shields, Kirsteen --- "Corporate Social Responsibility: Do Corporations Have a Responsibility to Trade Fairly? Can the Fairtrade Movement Deliver the Duty?" [2008] ELECD 292; 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 7

Section Title: Corporate Social Responsibility: Do Corporations Have a Responsibility to Trade Fairly? Can the Fairtrade Movement Deliver the Duty?

Author(s): Dine, Janet; Shields, Kirsteen

Number of pages: 26

Extract:

7. Corporate social responsibility: do
corporations have a responsibility to
trade fairly? Can the Fairtrade
movement deliver the duty?
Janet Dine and Kirsteen Shields

INTRODUCTION
The concept of corporate social responsibility cuts across the boundaries
between commercial law and human rights laws and, in particular, in a glob-
alized world the Law of International Trade and International Human Rights
Law. These disciplines have developed entirely separate frameworks, to the
extent that on a visit to the World Trade Organization in 2001, one of the
authors was told by an official that there was genuine puzzlement as to what
relevance human rights law has to the trading regime. Economic development
was seen as entirely politically neutral and beneficial. Since then the impact of
social movements and anti-globalization protestors has made a significant
difference in the way in which trade issues are discussed. It has even had some
impact on the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) although probably
least on the IMF. However, dialogue between the two fields is still in the early
stages of development and there is a danger that the more powerful system will
`capture' the less powerful. In this instance we see the WTO system as more
powerful than the international human rights system.1 This is for three primary
reasons; the full engagement of the United States in the WTO (it is not a signa-
tory to the UN Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), the exis-
tence of binding legal sanctions at the conclusion of ...