Fifteenth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

For almost two decades in Mexico, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been a topic among the different sectors involved in economic activities and also between new actors and international organizations and civil society. Thanks to this, the panorama has been transformed and the discussion has been enriched in terms of the concept and its scope, especially in terms of visibility of conﬂicts linked to human rights. These advances were due in part to the involvement of both the Mexican State and international bodies in the application of CSR schemes. In the last few years both national and international contexts have been crucial for the incorporation of new actors within the debate on social and environmental responsibility. Among these new actors are civil society organizations that have expressed their concern about the impacts of both private and state sectors in the ﬁeld of human rights, environment, corruption, indigenous peoples and gender questions. The result of this approach between emerging actors has been an interesting advance in terms of agreements signed with international organizations, especially through the bilateral cooperation in the ﬁeld of CSR and Human Rights. However, there are many obstacles in Mexico to the real implementation of any policy or international agreement on business and human rights, emerging a paradoxical situation in which a left-oriented government has been becoming an obstacle to the evolution of CSR. In this context, this paper presents an overview of the current status of CSR and human rights in Mexico.