The Evolution of Corporate Social Responsibility

Is Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) a matter of law? Despite the fact that the role of national states is being increasingly impinged upon by the process of globalization, the prevailing notion of law today continues to be based on the maintenance of the stability of the existing national structures. The function of law is still seen as consisting primarily in shielding expectations from the need to make all too many adjustments. By this means, it is intended that the law will contribute to the overall stability of society. What is central to CSR, however, is not the stabilization of relatively static structures. CSR is, essentially, a product of globalization. World society is a societal formation of a different order, and the function that it requires of the law is different from what a nationally segmented society demands: World society has no need for a legal system to stabilize structures whose nature is fundamentally static. Rather, the societal structures that predominate…