Sustainable Development: The UN Millennium Development Goals, the UN Global Compact, and the Common Good

20. The Future of the United Nations Global Compact

Part III WheRe Do We Go FRoM heRe? 361 20 | The Future of the United Nations Global Compact Kirk O. Hanson Since the founding of the united nations Global compact in 2000, many have admired its perseverance and effectiveness in engaging corporations and their leaders in the pursuit of global economic and social development. The ten principles of the Global compact summarize much of our collective hope for the contribution that corporations and other private businesses can make toward a world of peace and economic security. The credit for the accomplishments of the Global compact over its first ten years is due to Secretaries-General kofi Annan and Ban ki-moon, but also to the leadership of business executives such as Sir Mark Moody Stuart, former chairman of Royal Dutch Shell and now chairman of the Global compact Foundation, and the staff assembled and managed by executive Director Georg kell. After celebrating the Global compact’s tenth anniversary in 2011, and moving into the next decade, it is appropriate to ask several questions about the future of the organization. how these questions are answered will determine the future direction and success of the Global compact in its second decade. 362 Kirk O. Hanson WhAT WILL The GLoBAL coMPAcT’S Ten PRIncIPLeS MeAn In 2021? The first question is how the ten principles, which have formed the core commitments of the organization, will be elaborated upon and redefined over the coming years. In its first decade the Global compact had a deliberate strategy of promoting the ten principles without full definition and elaboration, letting corporate practices brought forth by members define what it means not to be “complicit in human rights abuses,” to eliminate “discrimination in respect of employment and occupation,” or to “undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility ,” for example. companies joining the Global compact were asked simply to support the principles and report annually on efforts to implement them. At first, the simple statements of the ten principles raised as many questions as they answered. Slowly, since the principles were first formally adopted in 2004, a series of Global compact meetings and conferences, as well as guidelines and best practices collected and published by the Global compact, have amplified the meaning of these commitments. In its second decade, the Global compact will face important debates over the meaning of the ten principles in a truly global world. While the 1948 un Declaration on human Rights provides the foundation for much of the ethical discussion, many see a need for further reflection. For example, the business world of 2001 was dominated by American and Western european multinational firms. Therefore, the philosophical and religious ethical traditions that informed how one understood the ten principles were primarily Western. categories of utilitarian thinking, concepts of rights and duties, notions of social justice, the common good, and the ancient verities of virtues were at the heart of one’s understanding of the imperatives of business ethics and the meaning of the ten principles. The global economic world of the second decade is increasingly populated by globalizing firms from china, India, central and eastern europe, South America, and Africa. These companies and their leaders bring the philosophical and ethical insights of hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, and other religions to global commerce. It is unclear what impact this will have on our understanding of the ten principles, but the dialogue with these traditions is an important agenda for the second decade. The Future of the united nations Global compact 363 This dialogue may lead to what has been called a “global ethic.” There are several initiatives underway to understand the valuable insights that each religious and philosophical tradition brings to global commerce, and to ask whether one can formulate a truly global ethic. What is clear is that ten years from now we will understand the Global compact principles differently because of the richness of these diverse traditions. closely related to the question of what insights will be drawn from different ethical and spiritual traditions is a cultural question. Do peoples in different cultures define the purpose of life and therefore the goals of the ten principles differently? Does human aspiration, happiness, and thriving mean different things in different cultures? Is “ethical” behavior to be defined differently in a country where people are more rather than less oriented toward spiritual fulfillment? Are...