John Ruggie: "Global Compact is a safe point of entry"

On October 22, John Ruggie, special representative of the UN Secretary-General on Business and Human Rights, participated in a press briefing at the UN headquarters in New York. He briefed correspondents on his report proposing a framework for business and human rights, which he presented to the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) of the General Assembly.

Matthew Lee from Inner City Press asked him several questions about the UN Global Compact. Mr. Ruggie, who is known as one of the main architects of the Compact, provided Mr. Lee with some answers. Among other things, Mr. Ruggie said that, for many companies and governments in the developing world, the Compact is a "safe point of entry" into the world of corporate social responsibility.

Here is a transcript of some of Mr. Ruggie’s statements:

"The Global Compact is what it is. It was intended as a learning mechanism, as a learning forum, where companies can get used to the idea of corporate social responsibility. I think it has done that particularly well in developing countries. […] I am not sure whether the people who lead the Global Compact would agree with this description, but my sense is that for a lot of companies and a lot of governments in the developing world this is a safe point of entry into the global CSR world. And, you know, it does that. It does that, from what I can judge, reasonably well. There is a whole bunch of other things that it doesn’t do. It was not intended to police ever, to begin with." (click here for video, RealPlayer required)

Mr. Ruggie acknowledged that there are companies that claim to be good corporate citizens just because they are members of the Global Compact. He believes this is a case of non sequitur. The fact that a company participates in the Compact does not mean it adheres to all relevant international laws. According to Mr. Ruggie, companies that use this argument do damage to the Global Compact.

© Photo by UN Photo / Evan Schneider.