Must There Be a First Time for Everything?

[Finals time is here, post frequency & depth might decline...]

The Economist.com has a new article up discussing the fallout over firm's image and advertising dollars in connection with Darfur and the Beijing Olympics, Beyond the “genocide Olympics”. This article has generated more comments at the Economist than any article I've seen over there. Here is the central paragraph:

Coca-Cola is doing some good things in Darfur, from providing immediate relief on the ground to meeting “stakeholders” to try to figure out solutions to the crisis. But is this enough to buy Coca-Cola the right to remain silent in public about China? As Mr Isdell puts it, “rather than make public statements, we have chosen a more direct and, in our view, more effective route to help address the staggering human suffering in Darfur.” Not good enough, retorts Human Rights Watch, along with other campaigning NGOs.

The article reports that when the UN Human Rights Council convenes in June:

it will be the first time that the UN human-rights machinery has taken a substantive position on companies’ responsibilities. Mr Ruggie hopes for greater clarity over the duties of firms and governments, and a better balance between protecting the legitimate interests of investors with the needs of host states to discharge their human-rights obligations.

Ugh... What place does a bloated bureaucracy have in drawing up substantive standards on the way business should operate? Isn't this supposed to be the job of the market place and tort law suits? If companies want to speak out against China and the way it operates in Darfur then they'll alienate their Chinese customers and appease their Western customers. Keeping mum will have the opposite effect. Coca-Cola seems to be doing an admirable job in striking a reasonable balance, and at least they're taking action in Sudan rather than just offering verbal condemnation. It is of course crucial that there is a free press to allow the market to see what these companies are doing and the manner in which they operate, but it should not be the UN's job to regulate MNC's human rights.

In the final paragraph of the article they quote Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, chairman of Anglo American, who says that Chinese companies are "slowly becoming more sensitive to human rights," and that they understand and are taking seriously the government's call of the development of a "harmonious society."

I guess we'll just have to wait and see if the billion dollars in Olympics advertising pays off...