Corporate Social Responsibility Committee

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is variously defined but is generally accepted to denote responsibly grounded business decision-making that considers its impact on people, communities and the environment. The increasing emphasis on CSR has particular importance for lawyers both as advisers to their clients and, in the case of law firms, as enterprises in their own right. The Constituent's remit therefore includes both an examination of the many CSR-related issues on which business clients may seek legal advice from an in-house counsel or external lawyer and the issues which confront lawyers and law firms in relation to their key stakeholders; partners, staff, clients, their professional regulator and the community in which they practice.

Click here to read the report on the CSR Sessions held at the IBA Annual Conference in Singapore, October 2007

More background on the relevance of CSR to lawyers is to be found in the following papers:

'Corporate responsibility - the role of the legal profession' by Dick Taylor
(This article is reproduced by kind permission of CMS Cameron McKenna LLP
(c) CMS Cameron McKenna LLP 2005)

'Corporate responsibility and the business of law' by Halina Ward

'Legal issues in corporate citizenship' by Halina Ward

Halina Ward's papers on 'Corporate responsibility and the business of law' and 'Legal issues in corporate citizenship' are posted on this website with the permission of the International Institute for Environment and Development (www.iied.org)

CSR and Human Rights

Memorandum - International Commission of Jurists - 'Human rights implications of the 2004 amendments to the US sentencing guidelines for organizational defendants'

'Translating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into Business Language: The UN Draft Norms, Prof. Ruggie, and the Business Leaders Initiative on Human Rights' by John F Sherman III, Deputy General Counsel, National Grid

'Human Rights: Exploring the No-Man's Land between law and ethics'

'The Draft UN Norms and other Human Rights covenants affecting business'
by Michael Smyth, Clifford Chance LLP

'International Law, Human Rights and Corporations - Emerging Issues' by Craig Phillips, Allens Arthur Robinson

Additional reading -

'Multinationals & Corporate Social Responsibility - limitations and opportunities in international law' by Jennifer A Zerk, published by Cambridge University Press (2006)

'The Curse of Corporate Social Responsibility' by Sir Geoffrey Chandler

'Corporate responsibility - the corporate governance of the 21st century' (2005)edited by Ramon Mullerat, (Kluwer Law International / International Bar Association)


Constituent Officers

Please click here for a list of Corporate Social Responsibility Officers.

Constituent Publications

Click here to go to the Publications home page.

Members

Click here to access the IBA Member's Directory.