In October, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that a lawsuit by victims of apartheid in South Africa against 35 US and European companies could proceed.

The ruling reversed the dismissal in 2004 of the case, filed under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA), by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Companies involved include BP, Exxon, IBM, Citigroup, General Motors and Ford.

In its decision, the appellate court ruled that the district court had “erred” in ruling that the plaintiffs could not argue under ATCA that the companies had aided and abetted human rights violations by the apartheid government of South Africa.

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An update to Liz Umlas’ July post: Mandatory CSR?

In September 2007, Ethical Corporation noted that Malaysia was also putting laws in place around corporate social responsibility (CSR) (and in September 2006, that country’s stock exchange began requiring public companies to report on CSR-related initiatives). Here is the link to the article in Ethical Corporation.

Two recent articles point to some interesting developments - from some unlikely sources - regarding corporate social responsibility (CSR) and regulation.

In the UK, a report commissioned by Tomorrow’s Company concluded that companies should push for CSR laws. Ethical Performance noted in July that the report says that “while voluntary initiatives are the best way forward, ‘they subsequently need to be translated into national regulation that is then rigorously and uniformly enforced’.” Ethical Performance goes on to emphasize that most of the ten people on the panel that undertook the inquiry were from the business community, not from non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Also this month, Indonesia passed a law making CSR - broadly understood as the implementation of “environmental and social responsibility programs” - mandatory for companies, apparently becoming the first country to do so. Erin Lyon wrote in CSR Asia Weekly that business opposition to an earlier draft had led to a narrowing of the bill to cover only “companies with an impact on natural resources”.

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Some years ago, I whined to a friend, a management consultant, about some management problems I was having. With a look of pity for the forgetful, he raised his hand and spread his fingers as far as they would go.

“What’s that mean?”

“Maslow – the span of control.”

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