Does Corporate Social Responsibility Work?

February 9, 2007, 12:30pm – 2:00pm

About This Event

Over the last decade, progressives have embraced the notion that huge, multinational corporations can be pressured into good behavior – that every company can be like Ben and Jerry’s. But how successful has that movement been? And is it the best way to tackle important challenges going forward: from worker rights to global climate change? Please join the Center for American Progress and Democracy: A Journal of Ideas for this lively discussion on the record and future of corporate social responsibility. Featured Panelists:
Aaron Chatterji, assistant professor of management at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, fellow at the Center of American Progress, and co-author of “Corporate Social Irresponsibility,” Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, Issue #3
Dan Feldman, partner in the Corporate Social Responsibility ("CSR") group at the law firm Foley Hoag LLP
Mila Rosenthal, director of Amnesty International USA’s Business and Human Rights Program
David Nassar, Executive Director, Wal-Mart Watch

Moderated by:
Kenneth Baer, Kenneth Baer is co-founder and co-editor of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas

Introduction by:
Susan Lee, Vice President for Economic Policy, Center for American Progress

Location

Center for American Progress
1333 H St. NW
Washington, DC 20005

Resources

Video

• Susan Lee introduces the topic and panelists
• The panel discusses the benefits and problems of CSR 
• The panel takes questions from the audience
  

Biographies

Aaron Chatterji is a fellow at the Center for American Progress and co-author of “Corporate Social Irresponsibility,” Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, Issue #3. His research focuses on innovation policy, entrepreneurship and small business issues, and corporate social responsibility. Chatterji is an assistant professor at Duke University and received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. Chatterji has received numerous grants and awards for his research and teaching, including the Ewing Marion Kauffman Dissertation Fellowship, The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) Research fellowship for his work in Ghana, and the outstanding graduate student instructor award at the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley. He has received research grants from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the Center for Responsible Business (Berkeley), and the Center for Sustainable Enterprise (UNC-Chapel Hill). He has presented his academic research at several different conferences, including presentations in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Chatterji was a co-founder of the South Asian Political Alliance (SAPA) in the San Francisco Bay Area. He graduated with distinction from Cornell University with a degree in economics and international relations, and has previously worked at Goldman Sachs & Company, The Harvard Institute for International Development, Merrill Lynch, and the Office of Congressman Eliot Engel (D-NY 17th ).

Dan Feldman is a partner in the Corporate Social Responsibility ("CSR") group at the law firm Foley Hoag LLP, the only stand-alone CSR practice of a U.S.-based law firm. In this capacity, he has advised major multinational corporations on best practices with regard to human rights, labor rights, and indigenous rights issues, as well as stakeholder relations with local communities, host governments, and non-governmental organizations. Representative clients include BP, Talisman Energy, The World Bank Group, and Polo Ralph Lauren. He previously served as Director of Multilateral and Humanitarian Affairs at the National Security Council, where he was responsible for international public law and global human rights issues, and as Counsel and Communications Adviser to the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, on the staff of Sen. Joseph Lieberman. He acted as Senior Foreign Policy and National Security Advisor Advisor to the Kerry presidential campaign, and served a similar role for Gov. Mark Warner (D-VA). He has spent considerable time working on human rights and democratization issues in Africa and Asia, and has been appointed a White House Fellow and a Henry Luce Scholar. He is a graduate of Tufts University, Columbia Law School, and Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School.

Mila Rosenthal is the Director of Amnesty International USA’s Business and Human Rights Program, which promotes corporate accountability for human rights through public education and campaigning for the development of national and international legal frameworks. Mila was previously the Director of the Workers Rights Program at the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (now Human Rights First), and researched labor conditions in textile factories in Vietnam for her PhD in social anthropology from the London School of Economics. She was a consultant in Vietnam on rights-based issues to organizations including UNICEF; served as Director of the NGO Resource Project in Phnom Penh, Cambodia; and worked to build Cambodian civil society for UNTAC, the United Nations peacekeeping operation in Cambodia. Mila has written extensively about the social impact of globalization, previously taught at the LSE, and is currently an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, where she teaches international labor rights.

David Nassar has spent the past 15 years working on domestic and international campaigns, as a field organizer and later as a manager and a strategist. In 2003 in New Hampshire, David managed SEIU’s New Hampshire for Health Care campaign that made health care the number one issue in the 2004 Democratic primary in the Granite State. He is currently the executive director of Wal-Mart Watch.

Kenneth Baer is founder and editor of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas As the founder of Baer Communications, LLC, he has written for and advised Fortune 500 executives, non-profit leaders, presidential candidates, and elected officials at every level of government. During the 2004 election, he was a senior advisor to the Joe Lieberman for President campaign and later advised the Kerry-Edwards campaign on a variety of policy issues. Before founding Baer Communications in 2001, Baer was Deputy Director of Speechwriting for Gore-Lieberman 2000 and Senior Speechwriter for Vice President Al Gore; he also wrote on technology and telecommunications issues for FCC Chairman William E. Kennard. Baer is the author of Reinventing Democrats: The Politics of Liberalism from Reagan to Clinton (University Press of Kansas, 2000), has published commentaries in publications such as Slate, The Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post, and has been a political analyst on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ABC News, NPR, BBC, and CBC. Baer has a doctorate in Politics from Oxford University and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. In addition to running Baer Communications, he has taught at Georgetown University and at Johns Hopkins University. Currently, he is a contributor to the popular blog, www.TPMCafe.com.

Susan Lee is the Vice President for Economic Policy at the Center for American Progress. Prior to joining the Center, Sue spent over five years at McKinsey & Company, where she worked with a broad range of clients in the health care and nonprofit sectors and gained expertise across a variety of strategy and management issues. Her experiences have included developing a set of Medicaid reform options for a governor, shaping a major foundation's investment strategy in K-12 education, and working with leaders of England's National Health Service to reform regulation of the hospital system. During law school, Sue worked with Attorney General Janet Reno and at the law firm of Covington & Burling. She conducted research with professor Elizabeth Warren on health care affordability and with professor Derek Bok on opportunity in America. In addition, she taught legal research and writing to first-year law students. Sue received her undergraduate degree from Harvard College and her law degree from Harvard Law School, and she is a member of the New York Bar.

Democracy: A Journal of Ideas is a quarterly journal of serious progressive thought that serves as a place where ideas can be developed and important debates can be spurred. It is the progressive analogue of conservative journals such as Commentary, the Public Interest, National Interest, and the American Interest, which have been the source of conservatives' biggest breakthrough thinking. Edited by Kenneth Baer and Andrei Cherny, Democracy's Editorial Committee includes Louis Caldera, Christopher Edley, William Galston, Leslie Gelb, Elaine Kamarck, Robert Reich, Susan Rice, Isabel Sawhill, Theda Skocpol, Anne-Marie Slaughter, and Sean Wilentz.