THE ETHICAL CONSISTENCE OF AN ORGANIZATION
THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS: THE ETHICAL FRAMEWORK OF THE UNITED NATIONS
Eduardo Missoni
If you make a search on internet with the word “values-based organisations” you get some 3000 results; if you try with “ethical organisations” you get another 10,000 (try both with “s” and “z” in the word “organisation” to be sure you catch both the British and the American-english spelling!). Considering the dimension of the world wide web, I would say that those numbers are surprisingly low! But if you analyse your search you will discover that very often the “ethical” or “values-based” concept is used referring to the corporate sector and the need (or opportunity) for companies to become “socially responsible”.
At Indaba-network we are interested in another type of “values-based organisations”. We want to reflect about those organisations whose scope and aims are based on universal values and human rights, with a vision of a better world, one based on social justice and Peace.
We are especially interested in the future, therefore we want to especially to challenge youth and youth-related organisations.
This encompasses organisations very different in size, varying from small local associations, to international organisations, but all committed for the common good, dealing with issues such education, health, community development, environmental protection, promotion of intercultural dialogue, human rights, humanitarian efforts, and many others.
However, whatever their original “ethical framework”, organisations have the tendency to become the channel through which particular interests are served, rather than the vehicle of the values they were intended to serve and promote. Taking distance from the ideal, movements originally moved by high values, often end up as prisoners of the organization. Particular interests, including those of groups and entities external to the organization, are attracted by the opportunities the organization may offer, or by some of its specific objectives, rather than in its wider goal and values.
Today’s world needs organisations able to involve youth, to offer them ideals, tools and opportunities that empower them individually and collectively to challenge authoritarianism, nationalism, chauvinism and corruption. At all levels, these organizations should practice values and attitudes such as honesty, solidarity, democracy and active participation in decision-making, critical thinking, volunteering, respect for diversity and promotion of equal opportunities, environmental consciousness. Furthermore, today’s organizations need to react to increasingly fast and complex societal changes. This poses serious governance problems to many values-based organizations, which may respond adapting to mainstream tendencies and pressures, rather than re-proposing their original values and developing new approaches without giving up those principles. Issues of legitimacy, independence, accountability, internal democracy, representation, transparency, are common to many of those organizations, and their bodies at various levels. With an increasingly interconnected and interdependent world, values-based organizations need to rethink their positioning, governance and structures, if they want to remain relevant and play a role in shaping the future of today’s world.
From this pages, we will explore together the challenge that ethics represents for values-based organisations and their members, managers and leaders. The idea is to widely share our thoughts and experiences, with the purpose to ensure that our values-based organisations remain loyal to their ideals and really contribute to a better world.
THE ETHICAL CONSISTENCE OF AN ORGANIZATION
Eduardo Missoni
Let’s start at community level. I am sure that most of the readers of this blog did sometimes feel the need to form a group or to associate with their friends to develop some kind of project to give concrete outcome to the desire to better serve the community or to help others.
When confronted with human suffering, environmental issues, injustice or violation of human rights, some people tend to take distance, they feel it is not their business. However, most young people -especially if they went through an appropriate educational experience- feel they must do something, getting somehow involved in activities that may contribute to reducing suffering of those most in need and promoting their rights, or join their voice and action to limit environmental damage. At once they feel they need to get organised and join with others who share similar values and ideals.
Some may dedicate a portion of their free time in the development of such an initiative, or simply to volunteer in existing socially committed organisations. When still a student, this is the most common way of getting socially involved.
However when main studies are behind us and we need to orient our professional life, we may want to chose ways that bring together our desire for social involvement and our professional engagement. Also in this case we may join an organisation that we feel coherent with our vision, or think of starting a new socially valuable enterprise. In fact, when we think of a value based organisation we do not necessarily refer to nonprofit; to contribute to a better world any economical activity should be inspired and reflect an appropriate ethical framework. To the idea of social enterprise, or otherwise values based productive organisations we will devote analysis and debate later on.
In any case, the social value of the objectives of an organisation (solidarity toward the most disadvantaged, environmental protection, disaster relief, production of social services, education, health assistance, etc.) represent only one dimension of a values based organisation. Some how it’s external dimension.
Besides its objectives, the ethical consistence, hence the credibility of an organisation is in fact highly dependent on both structural (the way it is organised) and dynamic factors (relations among, and behaviour of its members) of its internal dimension.
When there is no coherence between those external and internal dimensions the ethical consistency of an organisation is seriously at stake. How does our organisation behave under this point of view?
A first point of verification is our local group (whether itself a self-contained organisation or a local section of a wider -national, international- one)
Assuming that our reference values framework is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, let’s ask ourselves: “Is my group open to all? Does it recognise equal dignity and rights to all? In my group do we all act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood?”
THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS: THE ETHICAL FRAMEWORK OF THE UNITED NATIONS
Eduardo Missoni
The celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights offers us a good opportunity to start our conversations about “Values-based Organizations”.
On December 10, 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Universal Declaration detailed “the ethical framework” of the values-based international organization established three years earlier, on 26 June 1945, when the Charter of the United Nations was signed in San Francisco, coming into force on 24 October 1945.
In the name of their People the representatives of the countries who signed the Charter, committed to those values:
“We the Peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,…”
The role and effectiveness of the Organization of the United Nations, and of its Specialised Agencies, has been often disputed. Some of the failures in granting Peace and respect of fundamental human rights, may well be attributed to some structural aspects linked to the architecture of the organization and its governance: the persistent differentiation between permanent and non-permanent members –for example- could be considered to be in contradiction with one of the founding principles of United Nations, such as “the equal rights … of nations large and small”.
However, from the ethical perpective that we are exploring here, we are more interested in understanding to what level members of the Organisation have lived up to the values to which they committed, in terms of:
- relations between individual members (countries represented by their governments),
- observance of those guiding principles in their own territories (also in respect toward the People in whose name they committed);
- relations between individual members and the United Nations; and
- leaders and executives’ capacity to live up to the values of the United Nations.
Organizations are made by people. People who represent member entities (as in the case of the United Nations, where governments representatives speak in the name of member States), people who are directly members of the organisation (as in the case of associations based on individual membership), and people who effectively run the organisation (leaders and executives of the organisation). The capacity of people in the latter group to live up to the stated values of the Organisation, is possibly the most important factor to preserve the Organisation’s adherence to its original goal and ethical identity. They have the highest responsibility in preserving its values, to avoid taking distance from the ideal and values that originated the organization.
Your comments on any of the four points above are welcome, both from a theoretical point of view or from direct experience, whether in relation to the United Nations or to any other organisation you may know or belong.
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