Corporate Social Responsibility in the Jurisprudence of the Colombian Constitutional Court: Binding Dimensions within Voluntariness

The purpose of the present article is to determine whether the normativity and schemes of corporate social responsibility (CSR) translate into binding obligations for companies operating in Colombia. To this end, this article carries out a general study of the concept of CSR: its origin, development, and structure, based on the doctrine and certain international CSR instruments. In particular, this article highlights how the international debate on CSR fluctuates between attempts to make it binding and instruments where it is developed as soft law. This phenomenon is also evident in Colombian domestic law, where the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court has addressed CSR and its relationship with the Colombian constitutional order. This jurisprudence identifies the constitutional backbone for CSR, as well as the constitutional understanding of its reach. This article concludes that, while the Constitutional Court reiterates that CSR is voluntary, the constitutional narrative on CSR contains binding elements.