If corporate activity is to sustain basic social and environmental needs, internationally binding rules are indispensable. For its part, big business invariably promotes voluntary corporate commitment to social and ecological goals as the best solution. While voluntary initiatives (as the UN Global Compact) may be a step in the right direction if it actually yields the desired results, the existence of initiatives for self-regulation (and the willingness of some corporations to actually implement them) is often misused as an argument against more binding rules for corporate accountability.

At the 2002 UN-Earth Summit in Johannesburg, Friends of the Earth urged the international community to adopt a binding set of rules by submitting a proposal for a UN-Convention on Corporate Accountability. The heads of state present agreed to pursue the creation of such a convention.

The most recent initiative regarding (binding) corporate regulation, the so-called UN norms, comes from the UN Commission for Human Rights. It has been on the agenda at its 60. session in spring 2004. Find more information about the UN norms here.

FoEI position paper: towards binding corporate accountability

"Building on Quicksand". A critical study on the Global Compact, published by CETIM, IBFAN and the Berne Declaration

Links to corporate accountability resources