Corso di studio in Management dell'Informazione e della Comunicazione Aziendale

Globalization offers our world new, exciting opportunities, but also sets challenges to international trade, people’s welfare in developing (and developed) countries, human and social rights, environmental matters… New rules are gradually being shaped in order to direct this worldwide process towards sustainable development and increasing wellbeing of people; frequently, however, their practical impact is not as strong as envisaged.

The “Legal requirements in business ethics and fair trade” course is designed to highlight these challenges, rules and critical aspects. It is a very interactive course, based predominantly on discussing examples of rules, practical experiences and cases, with the participation of guest lecturers from the business and cooperation sectors. Lessons will cover:

––Legal aspects of Business Ethics

––Human Rights, Immigration and Asylum Law

––Development Cooperation and Fair Trade

––Ethical issues in EU Consumer Protection and Competition Law

The course does not require prior knowledge of European or International Law, just active curiosity and some feeling for the urgent need for ethical rules in everyday life, especially in the world of companies, trade transactions and human relations.

A first part of the course is focused on Business Ethics. The main questions we shall think about and discuss together will be: what is ethics and how does it apply to business? How do ethics shape corporate social responsibility? Can ethics successfully be taken into account in working out legal firm strategies? What are the bases of ethical decision making, and how do they affect choices? Is the European Union starting to work towards ethical objectives?

A second section concerns Human Rights: many important declarations on Human Rights have been issued, but not always these rights are recognized in practice. We shall reflect on whether Human Rights rules are applied in a satisfactory way worldwide, and we shall address the theme of Refugees and Asylum rules in International and EU Law.

A further part of the course concerns Development Cooperation and Fair Trade, as means to foster the welfare of poorer populations by finding common points between requirements of economic development and protection of social rights. We shall look at practical experiences of development aid and fair trade schemes as well as at the scopes and activity of the leading fair trade organizations and examine the EU approach to fair trade rules and sustainable development.

Finally, we will consider how “ethical” the European Union actually is, in word and practice, by assessing the impact of ethical requirements on competition rules, advertising regulations and codes of conduct, as well as on EU rules concerning health and safety.