The UN Global Compact and substantive equality for women: Revealing a 'well hidden' mandate

Third World Quarterly

Volumn 28, Issue 4, 2007, Pages 751-773

  Kilgour, Maureen A ^a  

^a University Saint Boniface   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CITIZENSHIP; GLOBALIZATION; HUMAN RIGHTS; SOCIAL PROBLEM; UNITED NATIONS; WOMENS STATUS;

EID: 34249782003     PISSN: 01436597     EISSN: 13602241     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/01436590701336630     Document Type: Article

References (109)

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3. While acknowledging the importance of the concept of gender in understanding the social construction of identities, and while I refer to gender equality in some parts of the paper, I use 'women' as a concept here because the focus of the research is on how the Global Compact addresses inequality faced by women as a group. Although I do not distinguish among groups of women in this paper, it is important to realise that, just as the category of 'women' is not homogeneous, there are multiple and concurrent levels of oppression that women face, such as racism, homophobia, cultural genocide of aboriginal peoples, etc. Finally, I use the concept of 'equality' in a broad sense, referring to the goal of substantive equality and social justice, which is based on the recognition that women are differentially situated and have been historically and systemically discriminated against.
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30. Ibid, pp 186, 214.
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32. For example, as discussed by Rai, 'Gendering global governance'.
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35. For example, O de Schutter (ed), Transnational Corporations and Human Rights, Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2006; and Clapham, Human Rights Obligations of Non-State Actors.
36. The concepts of corporate accountability, corporate responsibility and citizenship give rise to numerous debates and definitions. Matten and Crane suggest that corporate citizenship can be understood as a firm's administration of citizenship rights. OF Williams, 'The UN Global Compact: The challenge and the promise', Business Ethics Quarterly 14 (4), 2004, pp 755-774; and D Matten & A Crane, 'Corporate citizenship: Toward an extended theoretical conceptualization', Academy of Management Review, 30 (1), 2005, pp 166-179.
37. There are other actors involved, such as NGOs, university research centres, etc, but the main player and the focus of this study is business. 34 P Utting, 'Corporate responsibility and the movement of business', Development in Practice, 15 (3-4), 2005, p 382.
38. WD Reinicke & Francis Deng, Critical Choices: The United Nations, Networks and the Future of Global Governance, Ottawa: IDRC, 2000, p 5.
39. 'Corporate citizenship' is the term used by the Global Compact itself. While there is significant debate over the terminology used to define these type of activities (CSR, CR, sustainability, etc), because it is not central to this paper, I will use the term corporate citizenship. For an interesting discussion on the meaning of corporate citizenship, see Matten & Crane, 'Corporate citizenship'.
40. UN Global Compact, 2006, at http://www.unglobalcompact.org/AboutTheGC/ TheTenPrinciples.
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46. The Global Compact is different from some other corporate citizenship or CSR initiatives in the sense that firms have made an explicit and public commitment to a specific list of principles. But for the purposes of this paper, while acknowledging the importance of the burgeoning debate over the variations of CSR and corporate citizenship, those distinctions are less relevant here, and I simply refer to the Global Compact as a CSR initiative.
47. M Friedman, 'The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits', New York Times Magazine, 13 September 1970.
48. Matten & Crane, 'Corporate citizenship'.
49. The UN Global Compact suggests a broad definition of sphere of influence: 'Understanding a company's sphere of influence can be accomplished by mapping the stakeholder groups affected by a business's operations. A key stakeholder group that will normally lie at the center of any company's sphere of influence will be employees. Other groups, such as business partners, suppliers, trade unions, local communities, and customers will follow. The final group will usually be government and the wider society.' A Guide for Integrating Human Rights into Business Management, Business Leaders' Initiative on Human Rights, UN Global Compact and Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2006, at http://www.unglobalcompact.org/NewsAndEvents/ recent_publications.html.
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62. P Antrobus, cited in ibid.
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64. KA Grosser & JA Moon, 'The role of corporate social responsibility in gender mainstreaming', International Feminist Journal of Politics, 7 (4), 2005, pp 532-554; and M Prieto-Carrón, 'Is there anyone listening? Women workers in factories in Central America, and corporate codes of conduct', Development, 47 (3), 2004, p 101.
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66. G Coleman, 'Gender, power and post-structuralism in corporate citizenship: A personal perspective on theory and change', Journal of Corporate Citizenship, 5, 2002, p 20.
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72. Peterson & Runyan, Global Gender Issues.
73. Apart from the vast academic literature on issues affecting women in developing economies, there are numerous CSOs which address the same issues, eg the Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) at http://www.wedo.org/.
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75. One recent example is among banana packers in Central America, as reported at http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/2970.
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83. Scholte, Globalization, p 339. Perhaps recognising the gaps in the way the UN addresses gender inequality, late in 2006 the UN Secretary-General's Panel for UN Reform recommended the creation of a well funded, well staffed agency (which would merge UNIFEM with other agencies dealing with gender equality), with a higher profile within the UN system. Delivering as One, Report of the Secretary-General's High Level Panel on UN System-wide Coherence in the Areas of Development, Humanitarian Assistance, and the Environment, 9 November 2006.
84. UN Daily Journal, Terra Viva, 23 June 2004. The Calvert Fund is a large US mutual fund corporation based in Washington, DC and a Global Compact signatory.
85. UNIFEM Press Release, at http://www.unifem.org.in/ PressRelease-CII%20MoU.pdf.
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88. Ibid.
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95. M Prieto & J Bendell, If You Want to Help Us then Start Listening to Us: From Factories and Plantations in Central America, Women Speak Out about Corporate Responsibility, Bath: New Academy of Business, 2002, at http://www.new-academy.ac.uk/research/gendercodesauditing/report.pdf, p 11.
96. Reinicke & Deng, Critical Choices.
97. Global Reporting Initiative, at http://www.globalreporting.org.
98. Grosser & Moon, 'Gender mainstreaming and corporate social responsibility', p 327.
99. http://www.globalreporting.org/InDevelopment/ResearchProjects/.
100. Coleman, 'Gender, power and post-structuralism in corporate citizenship', p 21.
101. P Bourdieu, 'De la domination masculine', Le Monde Diplomatique, October 1998, at http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/1998/08/BOURDIEU/10801.
102. Elias, 'International labour standards, codes of conduct and gender issues', p. 301; and Clapham, Human Rights Obligations of Non-State Actors, p 16.
103. Blowfield, 'Corporate social responsibility'; Newell, 'Citizenship, accountability and community'; and Utting, 'Corporate social responsibility and the movement of business', address this contradiction.
104. Ruggie, 'Globalοvernance.net', p 373.
105. Waylen, 'Putting governance into the gendered political economy of globalization', offers the example of gender mainstreaming at the World Bank, and cites studies which argue that, despite no fundamental change to its vision, gender equality has begun to be addressed in a measurable way.
106. M Monshipouri, CE Welch Jr & ET Kennedy, 'Multinational corporations and the ethics of global responsibility: Problems and possibilities', Human Rights Quarterly, 25, 2003, pp 965-989; and Elias, 'International labour standards, codes of conduct and gender issues', p 293.
107. JG Freynas, 'The false developmental promise of corporate social responsibility: Evidence from multinational oil companies', International Affairs, 81 (3), 2005, pp 581-598. Frynas argues that 'there are fundamental problems about the capacity of private firms to deliver development, and the aspiration of achieving broader development goals through CSR may be flawed'.
108. Ruggie, 'Reconstituting the global public domain'.
109. K Nowrot, 'The new governance structure of the Global Compact-transforming a "learning network" into a federalized and parliamentarized transnational regulatory regime', Essays in Transnational Economic Law (Transnational Economic Law Research Centre, Halle), 47, November 2005, p 5.