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Ken Wiwa: From Saturday's Globe and Mail 

BAT's grudging withdrawal from Myanmar strikes me as another example of the attitudes that have hardened people running corporations into thinking that they are beyond the reach of morality and law. For too long, corporations have responded to charges levelled against them by green-washing their image; they seem to think that corporate social responsibility (CSR) is only about publishing reports.

Reporting on a corporation's social responsibility is a good place to start -- but where's the bite? How about adopting a global standard with punitive sanctions for corporations that break international law? It is so galling when corporations bleat about how much they do for a country, even as they are raking massive profits. Meanwhile, the repressive regimes that also profit from those same investment dollars continue to buy the arms that allow them to terrorize their own people.

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