The Case of Judicialization of Corporate Social Responsibility in China

The popularity of contemporary CSR has spread on to the world scene. This paper takes a perspective of judicialization of CSR, namely how the judicial means can be employed for addressing CSR-related issues in contrast to the conventional wisdom on enhanced disclosure and market force. In order to have a comprehensive picture, this paper examines Chinese judicial judgment practice in the context of the broad interpretation of CSR, which includes economic and legal responsibility and case studies in the context of narrow interpretation of CSR, which only includes responsibility over and beyond economic and legal requirements. This paper then identifies the main challenges and problems of CSR in China together with the unique situation in China. It concludes by recommending more substantial and enforceable contents for the CSR provisions in order to provide both courts and claimants more guidelines to exercise judicial means for addressing core issues involved in CSR