LAW 652 - Corporate Social Responsibility Seminar

Course Type: Upper Writing Requirement
Credits: 2

Description: This seminar on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) introduces students to environmental and social concerns relating to the conduct of transnational corporations worldwide and the different approaches proposed for integrating beneficial environmental and social policies into transnational business operations. As part of the course, students will examine the impact of transnational corporate activity on a broad spectrum of stakeholders and evaluate international, national, and sub-national efforts to promote corporate social responsibility, including the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. This course also challenges students to consider the prospects for regulation of international public goods by private actors. Students will evaluate whether CSR objectives are better achieved by (a) a traditional governance framework dominated by government actors, (b) self-regulation by transnational corporate society, or (c) public-private partnerships between these two sets of actors. By evaluating these questions, students are invited to consider the potential role of transnational civil society in making, interpreting, and enforcing international law.