Description
Abstract Corporations nowadays are required to deliver goods and services beyond profitable management of business activities: companies have responsibilities toward people and the societies in which they operate. Having CSR strategies, ESG policy, and even promoting UN Global Compact are now considered responsibilities of corporations, which provides a legitimate aspect for their continued operation. The trend of acting on CSR and UN guidelines even goes as far as encouraging the private sector to engage in humanitarian action. However, corporations are not Samaritans. And they rightly should not be. This paper argues that corporations’ ‘Everyday CSR’ is inappropriate at its best and harmful at its worst. The duties and responsibilities in a humanitarian context require that corporations commit to the kind of humanitarian values and norm-based approach humanitarian INGOs have. This paper proposes ‘Corporate Humanitarian Responsibility’ (CHR) for corporations who want to engage in humanitarian relief efforts. In particular, it argues that corporations need to follow five distinct humanitarian responsibilities derived from the concept of humanitarian ethics, instead of ‘Everyday CSR’.
