Corporate Social Responsibility & The Law

Foley Hoag’s unique Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practice was launched in 2000 and provides counsel to multinational companies, governments, and multilateral institutions regarding social, political, and environmental challenges.

Blog Authors

Sarah A. Altschuller

Helen Clapp

Vivek Krishnamurthy

Isa Mirza

Latest from Corporate Social Responsibility & The Law

Corporate Social Responsibility & The Law

Trump Administration’s Proposed Prosecution of Pipeline Opponents: Weighing Human Rights Obligations and Congressional Support

By Isa Mirza on July 10, 2019

The Trump Administration is using the reauthorization of a pipeline safety statute as an opening to insert new provisions that would give U.S. authorities broader latitude to thwart and criminalize the activities of protestors opposing hydrocarbon pipeline projects. The provision would apply to both existing pipelines and those that are under construction, with at least the partial intent of targeting large-scale protests that have encircled construction of oil transport infrastructure projects like the Dakota Access…

Corporate Social Responsibility & The Law

Pioneering Dutch Law Raises Global Standards for Eliminating Child Labor in Supply Chains – Understanding the Dimensions of Compliance

By Isa Mirza on June 7, 2019

The Dutch Senate recently adopted the Child Labour Due Diligence Act, a new measure with far reaching implications for the sourcing, manufacturing, and consumption of products that contain inputs from the bodies of child laborers. The new law is the product of protracted negotiations that have taken place over several years in the Dutch Parliament. The Dutch House of Representatives approved the legislation in February 2017 with 82 of the chamber’s 150 Members of…

Corporate Social Responsibility & The Law

“A Diamond’s Origins Are Forever”—Tiffany & Co. Announce Diamond Provenance Certification Program

By Helen Clapp on January 17, 2019

Tiffany & Company announced last week that it would become the world’s first jewelry company to share with its consumers information about the country of origin of each diamond they sell. This is the first in a step of transparency measures that the company is undertaking. By 2020, Tiffany hopes to provide its customers with information about where each diamond was cut, polished, and set; and in the future it aspires to disclose to…

Corporate Social Responsibility & The Law

Companies issue statement supporting civic freedoms and the rule of law

By Helen Clapp on January 3, 2019

Following the publication of a landmark report this September that makes the case for businesses to secure “the shared space” in which enterprises and civil society both operate, last month a group of eight leading organizations released a statement supporting civic freedoms, human rights defenders, and the rule of law. The statement, which is signed by companies including Unilever, Adidas and AngloAmerican, recognizes human rights defenders as “important partners in identifying risks or problems in…

Corporate Social Responsibility & The Law

UDHR at 70: Taking Stock of Human Rights Today

By Vivek Krishnamurthy on December 10, 2018

Eleanor Roosevelt, the moral force behind the UDHR. At the same time, we must remember that these worrisome trends are but half of the story. There is the considerable Evidence for Hope that the renowned human rights scholar Kathryn Sikkink lays out in her recent book, from the creation of effective mechanisms to hold human rights violators to account, to the headline fact that more of us live in rights-respecting societies today than at any…

Corporate Social Responsibility & The Law

Australia Enacts Modern Slavery Law

By Helen Clapp on December 7, 2018

On November 29, Australia became only the second country in the world to enact legislation to fight modern slavery when the country’s Parliament passed the Modern Slavery Act. The new Australian legislation is similar to the UK’s Modern Slavery Act, which was enacted in 2015, inasmuch as both statutes seek to fight modern slavery by getting companies to crack down on such practices in their supply chains. There are, however, important differences between…

Corporate Social Responsibility & The Law

The 2018 Corporate Human Rights Benchmark: Some Successes but Ongoing Challenges in Company Efforts to Advance Human Rights

By Isa Mirza on November 19, 2018

On November 12, The Corporate Human Rights Benchmark (CHRB) released the results of its 2018 Corporate Human Rights Benchmark. The 2018 Corporate Human Rights Benchmark assesses over 100 of the largest publicly traded multinational companies in the world on a set of key human rights indicators, including governance policies, remedies and grievance mechanisms, responding to serious allegations, due diligence, and transparency. Established in 2013, The Corporate Human Rights Benchmark is a non-profit multi-stakeholder initiative…

Corporate Social Responsibility & The Law

Making the case for business action to “secure the shared space”

By Vivek Krishnamurthy on September 25, 2018

The relationship between companies and civil society can often be acrimonious, yet in the current geopolitical environment, they share more interests in common than one might think. This is the key insight that underpins new guidance authored by Bennett Freeman and others for the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre and two partner organizations on the role that companies should play in protecting the “shared space” they occupy with civil society. This “shared space,” which…