Foreword

[...] conflicting legal rules and norms, some pushing for the pursuance of CSR and sustainability goals and some suggesting the risk of liability for the same, were in the focus of the conference titled ‘To Pursue or Not to Pursue CSR Goals: Legal Risks and Liabilities’ held in Copenhagen on 6-7 October 2016. This conference was an initiative of the Centre for Enterprise Liability, Copenhagen University (CEVIA) and the International and Transnational Tendencies in Law centre, Aarhus University (INTRAlaw) and co-organised with the Sustainable Market Actors for Responsible Trade (SMART) project and the CSR Legal Research Network. The speakers addressed the issue of whether companies, states and other entities that are required by transnational private regulation and soft law to pursue CSR and sustainability goals in their activities may in fact face legal risks and liabilities for doing or not doing so. This special issue presents five of the contributions, discussing the topic both from the company (private) and state (public) perspectives. [...]