EP talks to former president of
Ireland Mary Robinson about the role companies can play in galvanizing
governments and society into action on key global issues
There are few globally recognized ‘big-shots’ in the world of corporate
social responsibility. Mary Robinson is one of them – and her
involvement continues to deepen.
The former president of Ireland and ex-United Nations high commissioner
for human rights has her finger in a number of CSR pies these days, not
least as chair of the Business Leaders Initiative on Human Rights,
which has decided to extend its life by three years (see page one), but
also as executive director of The Ethical Globalization Initiative,
which she set up in 1992 to bring together businesses, civil society
and governments to improve human rights and tackle issues such as
HIV/Aids.
Now based in New York, Robinson is also on an advisory board of the
Clinton Global Initiative working on anti-poverty programmes that
involve business (see page eight). This linkage between business,
poverty reduction and human rights is crucial to Robinson. ‘Extreme
poverty to me is the greatest denial of the exercise of human rights,’
she says. ‘You don’t vote, you don’t participate in any political
activity, your views aren’t listened to, you have no food, you have no
shelter, your children are dying of preventable diseases – you don’t
even have the right to clean water.’ This is what Robinson means when
she talks of ‘the integrity of human rights – it’s not just civil and
political rights, it also includes economic, social and cultural rights
– the right to food, to education, to health.’
These views, coupled with her stature as a political figure, have made
Robinson one of the most influential advocates of corporate
responsibility on the world stage – not just in CSR forums but in wider
spheres too. What, then, might we expect Robinson to be arguing over
the next few years?
Her chief theme, it appears, will be that big business needs to lead
from the front. She believes that on a range of issues, from human
rights to HIV and Aids, the involvement of companies has the ability to
galvanize civil society and governments into action.
Robinson is critical of corporate inaction in some areas. But she does
not view the record of non-governmental organizations and governments
through rose-tinted spectacles either. During her time at the UN, she
says she became deeply frustrated at the lack of political will to
advance labour standards and equal opportunities. As someone who has
worked for years with NGOs, she is under no illusion that they always
deliver what they promise. Her 24-year-old son works with NGOs on
HIV/Aids in South Africa, and she reports that he has been ‘dismayed by
the level of corruption in the NGO world’. Her feeling is that
corporations must now set the standard on behaviour and pull others up
with them.
That’s why Robinson is such a keen advocate of attempts to agree
binding UN ‘norms’ on the behaviour of multinationals – and is
distressed at the generally hostile business response to this.
‘The antipathy to the norms has surprised and depressed me,’ she told
EP. ‘It’s in the interests of businesses to have standards of rule and
law, and by helping to bring about better standards internationally
they’ll make their companies more secure in countries where there have
been problems.’
Apart from creating better conditions for themselves, Robinson argues,
‘if companies start to take issues such as human rights seriously, then
that will have a knock-on effect on governments and civil society’. She
is concerned that the UN Global Compact is not much of a challenge for
many companies, but feels more multinationals need to get behind the
initiative – if only because of the message this would send to
developing countries.
‘It’s been good to see the take-up of the Compact in countries such as
Brazil and India,’ she says. ‘I think there’s no doubt that the Compact
is more useful for companies in developing countries because it’s an
entry point for them on CSR, but it’s very foolish of those large
multinationals – and they are mainly from the US – that don’t take the
Compact seriously. A major multinational with a good reputation would
not have to change its behaviour significantly in order to sign up to
the Compact; the bar is very low. But if they continue to ignore the
Compact then why should other companies take it seriously? Apart from
anything, it has the potential to level the playing field by raising
standards across the world, which is something multinationals always
talk about.’
