University of Vaasa - Vaasan yliopisto

c. Human Rights
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CSR has a strong human rights dimension, particularly in relation to international
operations and global supply chains. Companies face challenging questions,
including how to identify where their areas of responsibility lie as distinct from those
of governments, how to monitor whether their business partners are complying with
their core values, and how to approach and operate in countries where human rights
violations are widespread (EC 2001). In fact companies have a direct responsibility
to ensure the protection of human rights in their own operations. They also have a
responsibility to use their influence to mitigate the violation of human rights by
governments, the forces of law and order or opposition groups in the countries in
which they operate (Krishnan & Balachandran 2004). Since the present research
focuses on the actions carried out by companies in favor of local communities, only
the external dimension was considered. To report the main results of the
benchmarking data are summarized in the tables below (see Table 1. and 2.) in order
to make them easier to read. The first table reports the common practices for each of
the three categories, while the second spotlights the most interesting topics and the
best practices found in the companies’ reports.