ISO 26000 and global governance for sustainable development
ISO 26000 is a new international standard on social responsibility developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). It offers guidance across themes including human rights, labour, environment, consumer protection, fair operating practices and community development.This paper describes the development of the ISO 26000 standard and discusses the dissonances that emerged in relation to policy making, global governance and consequently sustainable development. The paper suggests a number of steps that could be taken to maximize the positive contributions of ISO 26000 to global governance for sustainable development and offers lessons for the analysis of other market governance mechanisms.