The globalization of trade and investment flows has been paralleled by the emergence of Codes of Conduct. Although the first corporate code of conduct was created by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in 1949, the 1990s witnessed a plethora of voluntary codes and corporate social responsibility (CSR) guidelines. There is no consensus on the precise definition of a code of conduct. Codes can range from one-page broad statements to detailed benchmarks and guidelines on how to conduct business practices globally. Voluntary approaches are based either on a self-regulation model or a co-regulation one between firms, citizen groups, and governments.
It is important to underscore that voluntary approaches did not emerge in a vacuum. Their emergence has more to do with a change in the paradigm of how global capital should be governed. Voluntary approaches, such as the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Corporations (see below), were a direct response to UN initiatives in the 1970s to regulate the activities of TNCs. However, it needs to be emphasized that, unlike the UN initiatives, the OECD Guidelines were not aimed at protecting national sovereignty or addressing developmental concerns of the host countries, but at circumventing the UN initiatives.
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