Corporate social responsibility through the global compact: between business and society

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility of business is becoming an increasingly relevant subject of research in political science, sociology, economics and law. The social responsibility of business is becoming the object of close attention of both governmental and nongovernmental organizations, and the priority of its development is provided at the national, supranational and international levels. This article considers the political and legal dimensions of the model of corporate social responsibility implemented through the Global Compact as an unprecedented private initiative of the United Nations. Astudy of the social consequences of the Global Compact offers the opportunity to observe the development of an extremely important initiative: the dissemination of practices and models of corporate social responsibility and the possible implications of this action for society, for business and for the United Nations itself. Corporate social responsibility, having an internal and external dimension, social and political content, goes far beyond the formal legal aspect. At the same time, states, including the BRICS countries, interested in developing corporate social responsibility practices, by legal means, in one way or another contribute to the development of the most promising practices of the social responsibility of business from their point of view. The United Nations pays special attention to the private sector as a promising tool for responding to new problems arising within the international environment. The principles formulated by the United Nations in the Global Compact are reflected and developed in the documents of other international organizations, and then in the programs and regulatory documents of the participating countries, and, of course, in the various codes of large and medium-sized corporations.