Meta-regulation: legal accountability for corporate social responsibility

TLDR: In this article, the authors argue that legal accountability for corporate social responsibility (CSR) must be aimed at making business enterprises put themselves through a CSR process aimed at CSR outcomes.

Abstract: The chapter argues that legal accountability for corporate social responsibility (CSR) must be aimed at making business enterprises put themselves through a CSR process aimed at CSR outcomes. It sets out what meta-regulating law must do and be in order to hold companies accountable for their responsibility. The chapter briefly explains how this notion of meta-regulating law relates to the plurality of legal, non-legal and quasi-legal 'governance' mechanisms at work in a globalising, post-regulatory' world. It also sets out the critique that law which attempts to meta-regulate corporate responsibility will focus on internal governance processes in a way that allows business to avoid the conflict between self-interest and social values, and therefore to avoid accountability. Meta-regulatory law is a response to the recognition that law itself is regulated by non-legal regulation, and should therefore seek to adapt itself to plural forms of regulation.