Monthly Archives: December 2011

The Obama Administration has filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum in support of the plaintiffs’ position that corporations are proper defendants in cases involving claims under the Alien Tort Statute ("ATS").  Filed on December 21, the brief was signed by the Department of Justice, the Department of State, and the Department of Commerce. … More

Former UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights John Ruggie, now a senior advisor to our CSR practice, recently authored an article in Corporate Secretary magazine in which he observed that there has been a "convergence of expectations" with regard to business responsibilities in the area of human rights.  

These expectations are set forth in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights,… More

I recently authored an article for IR Magazine on "CSR and the Role of the Board." In looking at board oversight in the area of CSR, one source that I relied upon was the 2010 report, Board Oversight of Environmental and Social Issues, published by Calvert Asset Management Company and The Corporate Library. 

The report analyzed board committee charters at S&P 100 firms and found that only 65 companies in the S&P 100 have board committees with some level of responsibility for oversight of corporate responsibility concerns.… More

A developer for Google’s Android mobile phone operating system has exposed what has the potential to be the most significant user privacy security vulnerability ever discovered in any computing device.

In a video posted to YouTube, Connecticut-based developer Trevor Eckhard has demonstrated how a program called Carrier IQ logs an astonishing amount of information about every aspect of mobile device use —… More