The Sullivan Principles as a Way to Struggle Against the Apartheid Regime in South Africa

The article covers the history of the foundation and application of the Sullivan Principles, proposed in 1977 as a voluntary set of rules for corporate social responsibility of American companies operating in South Africa, which, according to their compiler, were supposed to accelerate the elimination of the apartheid regime. The author of the article examines the biography of Leon Sullivan, an African-American activist for racial equality, who relied on nonviolent methods of struggle, which predetermined the concept of the Sullivan Principles as a way of peaceful corporate pressure on the apartheid regime. Although Sullivan’s initiative was not totally original, being based on the experiment of Polaroid Corporation, it turned out to be a convenient solution for American companies, which, accepting the Principles, freed themselves from the reputational losses connected to the cooperation with the apartheid regime while continuing to reap the profits from their businesses in South Africa. But by the early 1980s, due to increased public pressure on the US authorities and because of their passivity in introducing comprehensive measures against South Africa, the Sullivan Principles became an object of criticism. That is why their author began to toughen his position, joining the supporters of full-fledged economic sanctions in 1987. Thus, the Sullivan Principles turned out to be a very limited method of fighting apartheid, beneficial to corporations, and significant only in the absence of opposition to the racist regime by the US authorities. However, after the fall of the apartheid regime, the Principles did not lose their relevance, and in 1999, under the auspices of the United Nations, they were updated as the Global Sullivan Principles, designed to improve corporate ethics around the world.