Ochrona praw człowieka w Unii Europejskiej w aspekcie społecznej odpowiedzialności przedsiębiorstw – wybrane zagadnienia

The modern definition and catalogue of human rights were formalized after the World War II. One of the legal documents is Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 which states that all people are free and equal under the law, dignity and rights regardless a race, color, sex, language, religion, political and other views, nationality, social status and so on. All economic, social and cultural rights are also protected. An economic growth and common globalization require legal regulations on observations of human rights in business relations. Since 2001 European Union has been creating such regulations, admittedly not mandatory, but establishing corporate social responsibility (CSR). It means that an entrepreneur should consider in his economic strategy environmental and social aspects although accepting all those methods is entirely voluntarily. On February 6th, 2013, European Parliament accepted two resolutions on CSR: 1) Accountable, transparent and responsible business behavior and sustainable growth (2012/2098 (INI)); 2) Promoting society’s interests and a route to sustainable and inclusive recovery (2012/2097 (INI)). Resolutions include a new definition introduced by Commission, understood as “corporate responsibility for its influence on society”. The aims of both resolutions is to create mechanisms allowing to workout common values for enterprises owners, interested third parties and society and recognize, prevent and mitigate negative effects of destructing activity of enterprise. The involvement of small and medium-sized enterprises (MSP) sector in corporate social responsibility adjusting the methods of CSR to company size and character of activity is postulated. It is also seen that human rights in third countries, in which union companies have their shares and from which providers within chain of supplies originally come, need to be protected.