1

An interesting Canadian case (Das v. George Weston Limited), decided in 2017, pitted the Loblaws company, which manufactures Joe Fresh clothing, against the victims of Rana Plaza. While Loblaws had adopted a code of conduct concerning the quality of the work environment for employees in its supply chain, the judges refused to hold Loblaws responsible for the employees of the Rana Plaza factory, which it had subcontracted under questionable conditions. This decision raises the question of the legal scope of codes of conduct and, above all, of the reality of CSR. If this Ontario decision demonstrates a “soft” CSR on a legal level, it would be wrong to summarize the position of Canadian law according to this single decision. Canada takes corporate social responsibility seriously and is increasingly incorporating hard law into CSR._x000D_ A careful study of the normative landscape shows that Canada is in a schizophrenic position since it is gradually constructing an authentic "CSR law" which makes more and more room for hard law instruments, but is reluctant to give codes of conduct a binding normative force.