Resolución de Superintendencia Nacional N° 300-2014/SUNAT y normas

In this sense then, the genesis of company-led corporate social responsibility policies needs to be seen in the wider context of the political and economic international order of the l980s and 1990s. As the political climate moved towards increased deregulation and liberalisation of the global economy, the capacity of the state began to be ―rolled-back‖ and the position of the corporation as a global actor was consolidated. However, the neo-liberal consensus of the 1980s was diluted somewhat by the 1990s (Jenkins/UNRISD, 2005: 527), and attention came to be focussed on the behaviour of corporations in terms of their labour practices, and social and environmental impact.

Rather than prompting a wave of attempts at the global public regulation of corporations however, instead corporations began to engage in self-regulation. This is indicative of the widespread change in the position of the state within structures of global governance, and, as CSR has been put on the agenda of international organizations such as the World Bank and the UN, demonstrates the extent to which the line between global public and private authority is blurred in contemporary circumstances.

More specifically, the move towards corporate self-regulation and CSR policies has been driven by a number of factors. First, with an increase in the levels of FDI and the structures of a transnational corporation adapting to cope with such expansion, global business operates by means of global supply chains, in which a company can control production without exercising ownership (Jenkins, 2001: 7). Because of this mode of operation, a causal relationship is set up between vast webs of suppliers, so that it is hard to avoid the inevitable claim of responsibility on the part of a head company for the conduct of a contractor or supplier.

Second, Jenkins also cites the importance of intangible assets to a corporation‘s value, particularly in the trend towards branding and its associations with corporate image (Ibid). Although trademarks and brands have a history of use that extends back to guilds in the fourteenth century (May, 2006: 5), the late twentieth century was a period in which corporate branding became a key marketing strategy for global corporations. Increasingly, one of the main strengths of a global corporation is in the reputation (rather than just the quality) of its brand. This phenomenon works alongside global supply chains and outsourcing, as mentioned above, so that branding ―allows the networks of production and services behind a brand to become so loose and diffuse that connections are rarely made between immigrant workers, gangmasters, human trafficking, and the salad on our plates‖ (Amoore, 2006: 61). However, the converse of this has also become true. While corporations have outsourced their operations to the point that they bear little direct (legal) responsibility for the standards in their subsidiaries, the value of their brand has increased because the

brand has been used as the main asset in the marketing and sale of the product. The ability to connect unethical practices in a distant factory with, for example, clothes that are bought in a well-known branded clothes shop, can be severally damaging to corporate reputations. This ―market-based vehicle‖ provides corporate accountability movements with a way in which a corporation‘s behaviour in one country can be linked with its reputation in another (Vogel, 2006: 9). In the context of the rise in corporate accountability movements (see below), the negative impact of this strategy is something that such corporations seek to avoid at all costs.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, CSR policies have been driven by a massive growth in civil society and social movements, many of which have had corporate responsibility and accountability as a target for exposure/confrontation, and more recently, collaboration (Utting/UNRISD, 2005b: 10). Bendell states that, for example, by 1999, the nonprofit sector in 22 countries employed 19 million people full-time, turning over $1.1 trillion annually, over 100,000 part- time employees and 1.2 million full-time volunteers were working for international non-governmental organisations in France, Germany, Japan, The Netherlands, Spain and the UK (cited in Bendell, 2004a: 12). This growth in the popularity and strength of civil society activists and NGOs working on global issues was aided by the vast developments in communications technology, enabling such groups to disseminate information with unprecedented speed, regardless of geographical distance.

Although crude, a distinction needs to be made between two different types of civil society activity in the context of CSR. On the one hand, there is what Bendell describes as ―confrontational engagement‖, or forcing change tactics on the part of such groups that dominated the early 1990s (Ibid: 13). Such tactics involve the highlighting of bad practices on the part of corporations, the organisation of boycotts and protests, and an attempt to raise general awareness about the participation of well-known brands in unethical or unacceptable business practices. One well-known campaign has been that against the use of ―sweatshops‖ by Nike throughout the 1990s (for a chronology of events, see CCCE, 2009). A similar campaign was that of Baby Milk Action, which campaigned specifically against Nestle and their promotion of formula feeding of infants in the developing world (see Baby Milk Action, nd). These campaigns were both aided by, and an integral part of, the counter-globalization movement of the late 1990s, and events such as the World Social Forum, and the European Social Forum have given increased legitimacy and publicity to the civil society movement to highlight the power and responsibility of corporations.

On the other hand (partly as a result of the success of such movements, and partly as a result of the international political-economic climate of the time), civil society groups have also come to be involved at the level of both domestic and international governance in the development of CSR policies. In the main, this involves what are now known as public-private partnerships between business, civil society actors, and governmental institutions, or the creation of codes of conduct under the auspices of multi-stakeholder initiatives. Examples of such initiatives are the Global Reporting Initiative, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS,

Tuberculosis, and Malaria, The Forest Stewardship Council. At the level of the UN, civil society group (as well as business sector) participation in World Conferences and Summits has increased throughout the 1990s, for example in events such as the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, the 1995 World Summit on Social Development in Copenhagen, and the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002 (Forman and Segaar, 2006: 17).

In sum then, CSR policies have been developed as a result of (in the context of) 3 different phenomena: 1. the political-economic international climate of the 1980s and 1990s which emphasised a reduced role for the state in regulating business. This should be seen in the context of the priority given at the international institutional level to neoliberal economic policy. 2 the changing mode of operation of business, in which different suppliers and firms become involved in a chain of responsibility which ends with the all-important brand reputation; and 3. the growth in civil society activity highlighting this chain of responsibility, which has resulted both in pressure on corporations to reform, and partnership with government and business in order to develop and implement such reforms. Taken together, these three phenomena highlight the idea that CSR is both a reaction to and a manifestation of contemporary processes of globalisation.

2.4 Codes of Conduct: Agents, Content and Procedures of Corporate Social