CSR Practices and the Political Corporation in Law

Abstract

In her article ‘Corporate Social Responsibility: The Great Shell Game’, Ellen Hertz suggests that there is an inherent danger of corporate social responsibility (CSR) to obscure the public/private divide. By means of strategically engaging with public interests, corporate CSR practices – that according to Hertz are practices deriving from the market – are able ‘to preempt and discredit attempts to define and carry out policies designed to protect the broader public interest’. CSR should be seen as ‘remediation at best’ that ideally needs to be replaced by ‘rules for business’ created by ‘the public’ and not those created by companies themselves.