Event: Corporate social responsibility and human rights

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Eminent experts will discuss corporate social responsibility and human rights on 15 October.

The event 'Corporate Social Responsibility & Human Rights: Have Ten Years of Voluntarism Worked?' will mark the official launch of the UCL Institute of Human Rights.

It will take place in the Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre on the UCL Main Campus, 3-5:30pm. A drinks reception will follow at 5.30pm in the Flaxman Gallery, UCL Main Library.

While international corporations are taken to court for complicity in human rights abuses and the trade in child labour and sweatshops is still a scourge throughout the world, this event asks whether the international approach to CSR of the last ten years has worked.

The approach of the last decade has focused primarily on voluntary measures taken by companies and enterprises, and finds expression in codes of conduct and non-binding agreements like the UN Global Compact. The Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) movement originally proposed some measures which should be legally binding on corporations, together with voluntary measures, but this was rejected for a voluntarist approach.

Ten years on we ask: has this worked?

Speakers include:

• Baroness Onora O'Neill
• Susan George
• Leif Wenar, Philosopher
• Robert McCorquodale, Director of the British Institute of International & Comparative Law
• Martin Summers, Corporate Social Responsibility Representative for British American Tobacco
• Colm O'Cinneide, Legal Adviser (Equalities) to the Joint Select Committee on Human Rights
• Richard Howitt MEP, Politician

Places are limited, so please book online as soon as possible to secure your place.

For more event details, please contact Louisa Charles on 0207 679 9743.

This event is supported by UCL's Grand Challenge of Intercultural Interaction.