EU-Korea CSF insists on the need for Korea to ratify ILO core labour conventions

The role of corporate social responsibility in EU-Korea trade relations, including in supply chains and environmental protection, was also discussed during the fifth meeting of the Civil Society Forum (CSF) under the EU-Korea Free Trade Agreement held in Brussels on 20 and 21 February 2017.

The meeting started with a workshop on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), and the CSF expressed the view that there is scope for further discussion, cooperation and exchange of best practice on CSR, with a view to contributing to sustainable development in the EU, Korea and third countries.

The European and Korean economies are highly developed and the digitisation is spreading fast in nearly all industrial sectors, as well as in the daily life of the citizens. The impacts of digitisation on jobs, fundamental rights, work organisation and labour markets in general, as well as environment, should therefore be studied in the coming years.

The CSF expresses concern for shortcomings in the implementation of the ILO Fundamental Rights and Principles Conventions in the EU Member States and the continued lack of effective implementation in Korea.

With regard to the environment, the CSF recalls that the participants in the supply chains have a responsibility to protect the resources they rely on as well as for the decarbonisation process.

The CSF adopted a joint declaration on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), economic relations between the EU and Korea and labour standards.