Yesterday, Yahoo VP & Deputy General Counsel Michael Samway posted an article describing Yahoo's progress in developing a human rights code of conduct for the company. While the Senate had requested that companies have such codes in place within 48 hours (obviously based on the speed and efficiency of the House themselves), Yahoo feels that they have made progress, and hope that the code will be in place sometime in the next few months. As requested, Yahoo isn't waiting for the final code to be approved, and has already:
"Established a human rights fund to assist political dissidents and their families;
Implemented a human rights assessment as we explore doing business challenging markets and established a dedicated business and human rights program within the company; and
Founded academic fellowships at Stanford and Georgetown to advance free expression and global values."
There's a problem with this effort, however. It demonstrates how the U.S. refuses to acknowledge that U.S. law is not world law. The U.S. expects its own laws be followed by foreign companies doing business here, yet also expects that U.S. companies follow an American-centric code of ethics when doing business abroad. The reality is that following the local laws is a requirement of doing business in that country, no matter how much a code of ethics or personal feelings would dictate otherwise.
As an example, Google faces a similar situation in India. One issue is a lawsuit demanding the identity of an anonymous blogger who disparaged an Indian company on his or her blog, while another involves Yahoo and Microsoft as well and involves "sex selection" content being displayed, when it's illegal in India. As we move toward an increasingly global economy, conflicts between corporate ethics and the law of the land in which the corporations do business will become more frequent, not less. It's doubtful that a cooperative effort, even if adopted by every U.S. company, would change those requirements.
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"The reality is that following the local laws is a requirement of doing business in that country . . . ."
This simply isn't true. Companies routinely violate laws that are inconvenient or unprofitable. If they didn't, the scandals involving Enron, Chinese pet food, and Firestone tires wouldn't have happened. It is particularly easy to violate the law in dictatorships, which invariably have higher levels of corruption than mature democracies. The U.S. is simply saying that companies should violate unethical laws as they currently do inconvenient and unprofitable laws.
Moreover, what would happen if Google refused to disclose the identity of the blogger? They would undoubtedly be fined. But what if they refused to pay the fine? It's unlikely that India would ban Google, but if they did, there would probably be a popular backlash which would hurt the government much more than Google. The Indian government (which is not a mature democracy by any stretch of the imagination) is notoriously corrupt and highly unpopular. An attempt to ban Google would backfire and would probably trigger firings and reform.
In any case, faced with a choice between helping an authoritarian regime oppress its people withdrawing from the country, the only ethical course of action is to withdraw.
Edward, and where does that put the U.S. in the global economy? We already have a gigantic trade deficit. For some reason, the popular ideal seems to be that the U.S. has the moral high ground, but do we REALLY think that's the case? We don't have any of our own human rights violations? If it's down to ethics when it concerns government actions and human rights violations, I don't know why U.S. companies don't pull out of the U.S.
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