Ukraine’s integration into European and global legal space necessitates the updating and modernizing of economic law doctrine, and this particularly involves the uptake of new contexts which can be conductive to the full deployment of economic law’s capability of integrative, synergistic use of various methods of legal influence. Such contexts embrace the issue of social consequences of doing business, responsibility of enterprises for harm caused to society and its individual members, and the role of the State in ensuring the social orientation of business.

 The purpose of the article is to study the concepts of “corporate social responsibility (CSR)” and “business and human rights” (BHR), their common and distinctive features, promising areas of convergence, as well as their importance for the doctrine of economic law in Ukraine.

The author has found that CSR and BHR are the closely interrelated streams of legal thought having their main focus on companies which conduct responsible and socially useful economic activities. However, these concepts have major differences arising from their different origins. In CSR, the emphasis is on decision-making by the companies themselves, not on regulation of their activities by the State or legal liability. CSR is seen as a factor of an enterprise’s competitiveness. Instead, BHR assesses corporate behavior in the light of generally accepted human rights standards enshrined in fundamental international treaties, and is more focused on holding companies accountable for harm rather than on positive recognition of the role which a business can play in advocating and protecting human rights. The regulatory framework for BHR is the United Nations’ Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights 2011.

The author substantiates the expediency of integrating these two trends, since such integration will allow formulating a broad-based concept of socially responsible business which will not be limited just to the obligation of companies to respect human rights (as it is now provided for by the Guidelines), but will also include the obligation to take proactive and positive steps towards the protection and implementation of human rights.

Given the shallow penetration of the ideas and practices of socially responsible business into the Ukrainian legal and business consciousness, educational and awareness-raising efforts are crucial. A weighty contribution to such efforts can be made by the science of economic law which is characterized by a focus on the consistency with the public interest in the course of doing business, and by methodological pluralism.

Bibliography

Authored books

1. Bowen H, Social Responsibilities of the Businessman (University of Iowa Press 1959/2013) (in English).

2. Heald M, The Social Responsibilities of Business: Company and Community 1900–1960 (Transaction Publishers 1970) (in English).

3. Lukach I, Teoretychni problemy pravovoho rehuliuvannia korporatyvnykh vidnosyn v Ukraini: monohrafiia [Theoretical Issues of Corporate Relations Legal Framework in Ukraine: Monograph] (Lira-K 2015) (in Ukrainian).

4. Swenson D and Rice T and Graver H and others, Typovyi navchalnyi plan vyvchennia prava v Ukraini [Model Curriculum for the Study of Law in Ukraine] (USAID Ukraine 2018) (in Ukrainian).

5. Zinchenko A and Saprykina M, Rozvytok KSV v Ukraini: 2010–2018 [The Development of CSR in Ukraine: 2010–2018] (Iuston 2017) (in Ukrainian).

Journal articles

6. David D, ‘Business Responsibilities in an Uncertain World’ [1949] 27(3) Harvard Business Review 1-8 (in English).

7. Dempsey B, ‘The Roots of Business Responsibility’ [1949] 27(4) Harvard Business Review 393-404 (in English).

8. Ramasastry A, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility Versus Business and Human Rights: Bridging the Gap Between Responsibility and Accountability’ [2015] 14(2) Journal of Human Rights 239 (in English).

9. Scherer A and Palazzo G, ‘Toward a Political Conception of Corporate Responsibility: Business and Society Seen from a Habermasian Perspective’ [2007] 32(4) Academy of Management Review 1096-1120 (in English).

10. Wettstein F, ‘CSR and the Debate on Business and Human Rights’ [2012] 22(4) Business Ethics Quarterly 739-770 (in English).

11. Lukach I, ‘Zakonodavche zakriplennia nefinansovoho zvitu v konteksti Uhody pro asotsiatsiiu’ [‘Legislative Entrenchment of a Non-financial Report in the Context of the Association Agreement’] (2018) 6 Pravo Ukrainy 143-153 (in Ukrainian).

Websites

12. ‘Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework’ (United Nations, 2011) <https://www. ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/GuidingPrinciplesBusinessHR_EN.pdf> (accessed: 28.05.2019) (in English).

13. ‘Corporate social responsibility – CSR-UA’ <http://sr-ua.info/csr-ukraine> (accessed: 28.05.2019) (in in English).

14. ‘National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights’ <https://globalnaps.org/> (accessed: 28.05.2019) (in English).

15. ‘V Instytuti ekonomiko-pravovykh doslidzhen NAN Ukrainy vidbuvsia mizhnarodnyi naukovo-praktychnyi seminar “Zmitsnennia zasad u sferi biznesu i prav liudyny: draivery dlia Ukrainy”’ [‘International Scientific and Practical Seminar’ Strengthening Business and Human Rights: Drivers for Ukraine ‘Held at the Institute of Economic and Legal Research of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine”’] (NAN Ukrainy, 20.11.2018) <http://www.nas.gov.ua/EN/Messages/News/Pages/View.aspx?Mes sageID= 4408> (accessed: 28.05.2019) (in Ukrainian).