Business and Human Rights in a Time of Change (Christopher L. Avery, Nov. 1999)
8. Conclusion
As globalisation accelerates, the human rights performance of companies will be more closely scrutinised, evaluated and compared. Each company must now decide whether it will face up to human rights challenges with wisdom and leadership, or will defensively resist the attention being focused on its social record. Companies can no longer sit on the sidelines of the debate; inertia and inaction will be deemed irresponsibility. Superficial public relations gestures and codes of conduct that are not implemented or independently monitored will be seen for what they are. Companies will be expected to treat human rights issues with the same seriousness they give to traditional business issues, not as an afterthought or a damage-control exercise. A human rights component must be integrated into the company's decision-making at all levels -- it must be on the agenda, for example, when deciding: whether to invest or locate in a country, where to locate in a country and the impact that may have on existing communities, issues to raise with a host government, how to approach environmental/health/safety measures, how to deal with workers' organisations and to ensure they are allowed to operate in full freedom, recruitment/training/compensation/promotion/working hours of managers and staff, how to deal with allegations of discrimination or sexual harassment, how to deal with strikes or demonstrations against the company, security arrangements, what community projects should be supported by charitable giving. Companies that pay serious attention to respecting and promoting human rights will see their reputations enhanced. Those that do not will see their reputations suffer.
It is not just the reputations of individual companies that are at stake for the private sector. A backlash against globalisation and the market system is growing, largely because of dislocations and inequities caused by the new world economy, but also due to irresponsible behaviour by some multinational corporations, and a perception that too many multinational corporations address social, human rights and environmental concerns only if forced to do so and then only minimally. In December 1997 the Workplace Editor of Business Week magazine referred to "a growing backlash against globalisation around the world."[517]
In June 1999 U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, speaking to the Chamber of Commerce of the U.S., said: "As you know, globalization is under intense pressure. And business is in the line of fire, seen by many as not doing enough in the areas of environment, labour standards and human rights."[518] The fact sheet on the Secretary-General's proposed "Global Compact" notes that the "backlash against liberalization" could lead to a "return to market protectionism and unnecessary barriers against technical and commercial innovation." The document concludes: "To be sustainable, globalization must be accompanied by the effective promotion and protection of human rights, labour standards and the environment." [519]
The Director-General of the International Labour Office, Juan Somavia, said in an address to business leaders in November 1999: "Globalization has brought both prosperity and inequalities, which are testing the limits of collective social responsibility. If we are to avoid a serious backlash against the process of globalization, concerted action is needed." He urged business to be "part of the solution by addressing issues of equity, human dignity and labour rights, and by lifting those who are in danger of being left behind."[520]
Lester Thurow concludes in The Future of Capitalism that the private sector and the capitalist system must find a way to address social needs in a meaningful way if they are to survive and succeed:
If capitalism is to work in the long run, it must make investments that are not in any particular individual's immediate self-interest but are in the human community's long-run self-interest. How does a doctrine of radical short-run individualism emphasize long-run communal interests? How can capitalism promote the values that it needs to sustain itself when it denies that it needs to promote any particular set of values at all? Put simply, who represents the interests of the future to the present?[521]