Corporate Social Responsibility: A Step Towards Stronger Involvement of Business in MEA Implementation?

This article explores the relationship between multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) and corporate social responsibility (CSR). It offers an overview of the linkages, a survey of relevant provisions of key MEAs, and a review of the relationship between global trade rules and MEAs. Finally, the article highlights three ongoing discussions with relevance to linkages between CSR and MEAs: (1) whether, and if so how, to identify minimum global business standards in the environmental sphere; (2) the rapidly evolving 'sub-theme' within the CSR agenda which addresses the business/development interface, and the contribution of business to poverty reduction, sustainable livelihoods and achieving the Millennium Development Goals; and (3) the development by the International Organization for Standardization of an international guidance standard on 'organizational social responsibility', which, if adopted, will become ISO 26000. The risk of seeing CSR as a new pathway to MEA implementation is that the role of MEAs in informing the development of minimum acceptable environmental norms of business behaviour will be 'watered down'. If MEAs are to learn from CSR, their competitors and often stronger counterparts in the international architecture – intergovernmental trade and investment arrangements – also need to be equipped not only to be sensitive to CSR, but actively to support it. ¹     

Effects of positional restraint on oxygen saturation and heart rate following exercise

This report assesses the effects on peripheral oxygen saturation and heart rate that positional restraint induces when a person is prone, handcuffed, and "hog-tied." Peripheral oxygen saturation and heart rate were monitored at rest, during exercise, and during recovery from exercise for 10 adult subjects. The effects of positional restraint produced a mean recovery time that was significantly prolonged. Consequently, the physiological effects produced by positional restraint should be recognized in deaths where such measures are used.     

Whistleblowing as a new regulatory instrument in global governance: the case of tax evasion

Abstract

The cross-border impacts of whistleblowing recently have become far more visible and consequential, as evident with the ‘Paradise’ and ‘Panama Papers’ leaks, which exposed tax and other financial wrongdoings of prominent personalities around the world, leading to scandals, resignations and prosecutions. Despite its new prominence, whistleblowing often continues to be seen as a series of ad hoc chance acts. We argue instead that whistleblowing is an increasingly institutionalized regulatory tool that is enabled by an emergent ‘whistleblowing system’, with similarities to other new forms of informal global governance. Whistleblowing can be controversial, and we develop a framework for assessing whether any particular whistleblowing event and the system that enables it are in the public interest. We then apply this analysis to the case of global tax evasion. We conclude that a whistleblowing system can make important contributions to difficult cross-border regulatory challenges such as tax evasion, especially where other governance systems fail.