World is at a critical juncture.

Future advances in global integration, poverty reduction, protection of our planet and, ultimately, peace critically depend on our ability to collectively address the most pressing global challenges.

Accelerating the practice of corporate sustainability and responsibility is an urgent task in these complex times, when crises – from financial market break downs to environmental degradation – are increasingly global and connected.

There is no magic in the marketplace. 

Markets function efficiently and sustainably only when certain institutional parameters are in place. 

The preconditions for success are generally assumed to include the protection of property rights; the enforceability of contracts; competition; and the smooth flow of information. 

But a key requisite is often overlooked: curtailing individual and social harms imposed by markets. 

History demonstrates that without adequate institutional underpinnings, markets will fail to deliver their full benefits and may even become socially unsustainable.

In recent decades, especially the 1990s, global markets expanded significantly as a result of trade agreements, bilateral investment treaties, and domestic liberalization and privatization.

The rights of transnational corporations became more securely anchored in national laws and increasingly defended through compulsory arbitration before international tribunals. 

Globalization has contributed to impressive poverty reduction in major emerging market countries and overall welfare in the industrialized world. But it also imposes costs on people and communities - including corporate-related human rights abuses.

These are the challenges: blameworthy acts by corporations may occur without adequate sanctioning or reparation. For the sake of the victims of abuse, and to sustain globalization as a positive force, this must be fixed.

UIA BandHRs 2010 Athens Seminar will provide the platform for lawyers to convene, collaborate and commit to building a new era of sustainability and accountability. At the Seminar, BandHRs leaders will tackle priority areas that are central to corporate leadership today and essential for the transformation to sustainable markets. 

We will highlight milestones, champions and best practices which have helped to advance the corporate responsibility agenda. 

The Seminar is organized into clusters of standards and practices governing corporate “responsibility” (the legal, social, or moral obligations imposed on companies) and “accountability” (the mechanisms holding them to these obligations).

For ease of presentation, each cluster is laid out along a continuum, starting with the most deeply rooted international legal obligations, and ending with voluntary business standards.

A discussion of trends and gaps concludes each report. 

The aim is to create a resource that is useful to all lawyers, drawing attention to the important legal work being done by corporate accountability advocates, raising public awareness about corporate legal accountability, providing valuable information.

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