CSR Communication in Transnational Human Rights Litigations Against Parent Companies

Abstract

What do parent companies owe to individuals that are directly affected by the business conduct of a foreign subsidiary? In corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies and sustainability reports parent companies of multinational enterprises respond to that question. They emphasize their commitment to address environmental and human rights risks across their global supply chain. The CSR communication of parent companies constitutes multinational enterprises as responsible business organisations. CSR communication targets investors, creditors and consumers of the parent company. In this paper, I direct my attention to actors that had not been intended addressees of parent companies’ CSR communication: to the courts in their home state jurisdictions. Even though the CSR communication was not meant to be understood as legal communication, courts in home states of parent companies have been confronted with CSR communication in domestic transnational human rights litigation against multinational enterprises. I will discuss how employees, consumers and the general public took the CSR communication of parent company seriously and thereupon formulated claims under tort, contract or consumer protection laws. I argue that a legal approach to CSR communication should dissolve the conflicting simultaneity of assessing responsibility for human rights and the environment on an abstract level while avoiding liability in concrete cases.