Ethics Codes, Corporations and the Challenge of Globalization

Globalization has altered in significant ways the tools available to regulate international commerce. One result is the emergence of ethics codes, codes of responsible conduct, and best practice codes designed to win adherence to internationally acceptable norms of conduct on the part of corporations and other organizations interacting in the global market place. This volume looks at these developments with particular focus on five topic areas: respect for human rights, treatment of labor, bribery and corruption, environmental protection, and international finance and the control of money laundering. What is significant about these developments is the emerging emphasis on self-regulation as the primary method for raising standards of corporate conduct. The contributors examine the reasons for the emergence of ethical codes and the phenomenon of self-regulation within the context of globalization and look at the role of national governments, international government institutions and other international organizations in shaping and enforcing them. They also study the implications of these developments for corporate governance and the changing roles of national and international institutions in the regulation of international commerce. Authoritative and engaging, Ethics Codes, Corporations and the Challenge of Globalization will be of great interest to scholars and practitioners in the areas of business, economics, political science, labor, and corporate environmentalism.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Preface 1. Ethics, Globalization and the Phenomenon of Self-Regulation: An Introduction Part I: Ethics, Law, Globalization and the Modern Shareholder Owned Multinational Corporation 2. Ethics, Law and Corporate Self-Regulation 3. Corporate Codes of Conduct: Profit, Power and Law in the Global Economy Part II: Case Studies 4. Corporate Voluntarism and Human Rights: The Adequacy and Effectiveness of Voluntary Self-Regulation Regimes 5. The US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act: The Role of Ethics, Law and Self-Regulation in Global Markets 6. ‘Voluntary’ Ethical Conduct: Anti-Money Laundering Compliance and the Financial Sector 7. Private Ordering and Workers’ Rights in the Global Economy: Corporate Codes of Conduct as a Regime of Labour Market Regulation 8. Ethics Codes and MNCs as Minority Shareholders: The Case of a Bauxite Mine in Brazil Part III: Future Directions 9. Three Questions about Corporate Codes: Problemizations, Authorizations and the Public/Private Divide 10. Legally Mandated Self-Regulation: The Potential of Sentencing Guidelines 11. Voluntary Codes and the New Sustainability Paradigm 12. Ethics Codes: The Regulatory Norms of a Globalized Society? Index

About the Author :
Edited by the late Wesley Cragg, formerly Professor Emeritus and Senior Scholar in Philosophy, Schulich School of Business, York University, Canada where he is also Principle Investigator and Project Director, Canadian Business Ethics Research Network, Schulich School of Business, York University, Canada

Review :
'This is a book which will have wide appeal, not just to business ethicists, but to politicians, members of non-governmental organisations, historians, economists, the general public and, of course, company directors. . . The case studies in this book are enormously informative and fascinating. . . On finishing this book I found that Cragg's optimism had inflected my own pessimism. I also found the book so much more interesting than I expected it to be, to the extent that some of the papers were positively gripping.'