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Human Rights has a much longer and more formal history than CSR. For one thing, it has a global framework that is universally agreed upon. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1948 after the Nazi genocide drove the international community to articulate a set of inalienable rights and freedoms.
The Declaration includes freedom from the worst forms of abuse such as torture and slavery, as well as civil and political rights (the right to vote and to free expression) and economic and social rights (the right to an adequate standard of living and to education). Human rights are relevant to corporate responsibility and corporates impact on human rights in different ways.
Several CSR frameworks include indices on human rights.
The UN Global Compact promotes ten principles in the areas of human rights, labor, the environment, and anticorruption. Just like Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) many company undertake a Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA). HRIAs serve to assess how human rights as prescribed by the Universal Declaration are being respected or violated. Then they analyse how the company, its activity, new product or facility might change the situation. Finally an HRIA can tell the company how to minimize the risk of human rights abuses.
Human rights violations are an area for caution for many companies all over the world. Those companies that use supply chains out of Africa or Asia are especially wary. They almost certainly include a section in their CSR reports about their labor policies including their efforts to curb child labour and ensure a safer working environment for their female employees. Asian organizations are doing much to improve the profile of human rights within their countries.
Recently new indices on corruption, human rights, and women’s representation were added to the Asian Corporate Social Responsibility Assessment Model. An expert committee for the Asian CSR assessment model was made up of CSR experts from South Korea, China, and Japan to decide on an assessment model to serve as a standard in selecting 2011’s “East Asia 30,” representing the thirty businesses that are leading the way in CSR for the three countries. Prominent features for 2011 include newly added indicators for anti-corruption, CSR leadership, and representation of female directors in the governing structure category and human rights management in the society category.
The growing reports and concerns about human rights standards in various export economies like China, Bangladesh, Africa etc is cause for concern. This reflects badly not just on national policies but also on CSR of companies that buy goods from countries with weak labour rights. CSR is only a tiny part of human rights because the complexities of issues surrounding labour practices is myriad and interconnected. The state needs to protect its citizens against abuse by corporates and corporates in turn need to respect these laws. Every worker should have at their disposal a method by which compensation and justice can be demanded if human rights violation takes place. This is something that corporations can definitely facilitate for better CSR and labour practices.
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