Beyond Good Intentions

In her article “Beyond Good Intentions: Corporate Citizenship for a New Century”, Mary Robinson discusses possible routes to gaining corporate cooperation in non-binding environmental, human welfare, and other global common welfare issues. Robinson discusses why businesses can’t afford to wait until laws are passed. Issues such as human rights and the environment are too important for companies to ignore. And good intentions are not enough, either. “”It is vital that the business community focuses not only on policies of good corporate citizenship, but also their implementation in practice.” Skepticism is wide-spread about companies using their relatively miniscule contributions to non-profit organizations as “window dressing”, as actions without meaning or change in mentality or practice. Companies won’t have the responsibility to do it themselves. Robinson argues that governing bodies need to stimulate good practices and to stay away from regulation. When businesses are regulated, “society looses out on the power of business to innovate and establish new forms of behavior that are so desperately needed”, she argues.
Robinson proposes the United Nation’s Global Compact as a possible solution to this dilemma. She stresses that participation in this voluntary body “is not, and must not be, a mere public relations exercise”. The global compact is a necessary means of giving corporations social responsibility for their far-reaching actions.
Robinson also tackles the issue of complicity of corporations, specifically in the violations of the United Nation’s Declaration of Human Rights. She argues that corporations aren’t held responsible for only direct involvement with violations. “When human rights violations occur in the context of a business operation, the company need not necessarily cause the harm directly for it to become implicated in the abuses.” Furthermore, she argues, “it has become increasingly clear that the moral dimension of corporate action­ – or inaction – has taken on significant importance”.