Reference : Frison-Roche, M.-A., Le contrat est-il l'instrument optimal de la RSE ? ("Is the Contract the optimal instrument of CSR?")
in Trébulle, F.-G. (modérateur),
Les instruments de la RSE : le contrat (The instruments of CSR"), cycle of conferences organized by the Cour de cassation (French Civil Supreme Court and the Universities of Paris-Dauphine, Paris VIII and Paris I),Cour de cassation, Paris, 11 mai 2017.
Read the slides (in French) as served as the basis of the conference les slides Read the program on the Cour de cassation wesite (in French).
Read the program of the whole cycle of conferences in which this conference enters (in French) Corporate Social Responsibility belongs to Economic Law. It thus enters into its logic of
efficiency, leading to apprehend any legal mechanism as an instrument, the contract as the others. This does not mean that everything is only an instrument, on the contrary. Economic Law, when it takes the form of Regulation Law, places the principles in the aims pursued. It is in these principles that it can meet CSR if the goals are the same. In view of these aims, everything is an instrument. On the scale of goals which are "monumental"
1On this notion of "Monumental Goal", see Frison-Roche, M-A., Compliance Law, 2016 ; From Regulation Law to Compliance Law, 2017., in that they are global, in that they seem unattainable, such as the fight against child labor, such as the end of corruption or the sale of human beings, all legal instruments become interchangeable, from the Constitution to the
contract, from the hard law to the soft law. The only criterion becomes
efficiency to achieve the goal. We then reach the
efficiency, criterion of the Regulation Law. New laws, such as in France in 2016 the Sapin 2 law or in 2017 the law establishing a "duty of vigilance" with uncertain contours, may use the contract only as a vehicle for legal obligations to be performed by the company
2For a whole demonstration, see Frison-Roche, M.-A.,From Regulation Law to Compliance Law, 2017.. The contract becomes an instrument of the
Compliance Law, chosen as the optimal instrument of the Internalized Regulation Law in the company. But the contract can also be chosen as an instrument by the company in that it pursues the same goals of
general interest, becoming global
3On this notion of "global general interest", and maybe of "global public service", see Frison-Roche, M.A., From Regulation Law to Compliance Law, 2017 .. The contract is then chosen as an
Ex Ante tool, which will be refined to the specificity of the company, exceeded the generality of the law and which will be able to resolve the diversity of national laws by more comprehensive contractual relations. Moreover, the contract can integrate active
Ex Post mechanisms, such as the warning launcher or the controller, audits, or even form an ecosystem by training clauses to disseminate a CSR culture. By these contractual provisions, the contract operates the mixing of times, the
Ex-Ante and the
Ex Post, which the legislation can not do, refines it to what the particular enterprise is . In this, the contract converges towards what is being constructed: a Compliance Law.