6.7 Private regulation on responsible corporate conduct

Private regulation also appears to outweigh public regulation in the guidance of responsible corporate conduct. Section 6.2 defined the spectrum of types of private CSR regulation, as illustrated by Annex 6.1, such as the ICC Business Charter for Sustainable Development, the Forest Stewardship Council, the UN Global Compact Principles and the OECD MNE Guidelines. The private regulatory regimes mentioned in Annex 6.1 are but a few of those that have been initiated. It should be noted that a myriad of other initiatives exist, or are currently in the process of being developed, such as the ISO 26000 standard on CSR.

Since the OECD MNE Guidelines and the UN Global Compact Principles will be the subject of further elaboration, it is useful to mention that the latter represents a policy initiative for businesses which is comprised of ten universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labour, the environment and anti-corruption. The UN Global Compact Principles aim to help ensure that markets, commerce, technology and finance advance in ways that benefit economies and societies everywhere.1

For their part, the OECD MNE Guidelines are recommendations addressed by governments towards multinational enterprises operating in or from OECD countries. They provide voluntary principles and standards for responsible business conduct in a variety of areas including employment and industrial relations, human rights, the environment, information disclosure, combating bribery, consumer interests, science and technology, competition, and taxa-tion.2 Complaints about the behavior of companies in host countries can be submitted to the NCPs. This will be discussed in more detail in section 6.12 below.