The United Nations has offered to help businesses on corporate responsibility issues.
UN secretary general Kofi Annan has said he will put the resources of
UN agencies such as the International Labour organization and the UN
High Commissioner for Human Rights at the disposal of companies needing
help with labour standards, human rights and the environment.
Annan said UN agencies ‘stand ready’ to help businesses develop
policies on corporate responsibility and will be happy ‘to facilitate a
dialogue between business and other social groups to help find
solutions to the genuine concerns those groups have raised’.
He encouraged businesses to make contact through a new UN web site – www.un.org/partners – for corporations interested in linking up with the UN.
Annan said the UN was prepared to play a brokerage role as part of an
attempt to persuade businesses to take ethical issues into their own
hands.
‘Firms do not need to wait until every country has
introduced laws protecting freedom and the right to collective
bargaining before making sure that their own employees and those of
their subcontractors enjoy those rights’, he said. Annan’s comments
were made in a ‘vision paper’ produced by the Financial Timesand Prentice Hall.
The
UN’s purchasing arm appears close to becoming a member of the ethical
trading standard SA8000. The UN Office of Project Services handles
millions of dollars of buying contracts a year and would be a ‘very
significant’ new member if it enrolled, said a spokeswoman for the
Council on Economic Priorities, which runs SA8000.
