incommunicado

The UN Global Compact Office publishes a list of academic literature on its website. Most of the articles and reports on this list, however, assess the performance of the Compact from a business point of view. The bibliography on the Compact's website omits a great deal of relevant articles published by critical scholars and activists. Moreover, very few of the studies on the list are publicly available and free of cost.
Global Compact Critics keeps a list of free alternative sources, which is updated regularly. This list includes critical academic literature, reports published by civil society organizations, essays, relevant UN resolutions, conference reports, debates and interviews. Here is the latest update of our list: 


2010
- From Global Compact to global impact (link)
- The UN Global Compact and human rights: developing a vision for 2020 (download)
- What if we are failing? Towards a post-crisis Compact for systemic change (download)
- Sustainable dialogue (download)
- Geographic variations in the early diffusion of corporate voluntary standards: comparing ISO14001 and the Global Compact (link) 


2009
- Communicating progress to the Global Compact as a mechanism of regulation of the business activity (download) - “Global Compact, little impact?”: explaining variation in corporate attitudes towards global norms (download)
- Defining the limits of corporate responsibilities against the concept of legal positive obligations (download) 
- The corporate social responsibility model developed by the United Nations: the Global Compact (download)
- Is the UN Global Compact useful to companies? (link) 
- Critics of the UN Global Compact sound off (link)
- The great Twitter debate: the UN Global Compact (link)- Revised guidelines on cooperation between the United Nations and the business sector (download)- United Nations-business partnerships: good intentions and contradictory agendas (download) - The corporate stranglehold over the United Nations: how big business already wields significant power over the UN Water Agenda (download)- Human rights, Chinese business: how China's state-owned enterprises fit into international human rights law (download) 


2008- Incorporating labor and human rights risk into investment decisions (download)- Power, interests, and the United Nations Global Compact (download)- Network governance in international organizations: the case of global codes of conduct (download) - The Global Compact and its critics: activism, power relations, and corporate social responsibility (download)- Debate on the UN Global Compact in Ethical Corporation (download)
- Transnational corporations and human rights: responsibility as an ambiguous concept (download) 


2007
- Corporate globalisation, civil society and post-political regulation - whither democracy? (link) 
- Comments by UN Global Compact Office regarding the Global Compact Critics blog (download)  - Global Compact Alternative Hearing (download)  
- Taming corporations or buttressing market-led development? A critical assessment of the Global Compact (download) 
- Corporate complicity in Internet censorship in China - who cares for the Global Compact or the - Global Online Freedom Act? (download)   
- Partnering for development? The UN Global Compact's growing Sustainable Business Initiative (download) 
- Multistakeholder partnerships: future models of multilateralism? (download)  
- Corporate social and environmental responsibility in India: assessing the UN Global Compact's role (download) 


2006 
- Global Compact: a critique of UN's public-private partnership for promoting corporate citizenship (download) 
- Beyond pragmatism: appraising UN-business partnerships (download)- Teaching private governance: a critical analysis of the UN Global Compact (download) 


2005 - The United Nations’ Compact with business: hindering or helping the protection of human rights? (download)
- The UN Global Compact: a contribution to sustainable development? (download) 


2004
- Precarious "partnerships": six problems of the Global Compact between business and the UN (link)
- Joint civil society statement on the Global Compact and corporate accountability (link)
- Global Compact counter-summit (link)- Flags of inconvenience? The Global Compact and the future of the United Nations (download)- The United Nations Human Rights Norms for Business and the UN Global Compact (download)
- Two views of the Global Compact (link)- Global Compact, little impact (link)
- Public-private partnerships for health: a trend with no alternatives? (download) 


2003
- Development at risk: rethinking UN-business partnerships (download)- The Global Compact: why all the fuss? (link)- Building on quicksand: the Global Compact, democratic governance and Nestlé (download)- The development dimensions of the UN Global Compact (download)
- Global Compact is another exercise in futility (link) 


2002
- The Global Compact and civil society: averting a collision course (link)- Greenwash + 10: the UN's Global Compact, corporate accountability and the Johannesburg Earth Summit (download) 


2001
- Regulating business via multistakeholder initiatives: a preliminary assessment (download)
- Global Compact with corporations: "civil society" responds (link)
- Global Compact has potential problems, not win-win (link) 


2000 
- Tangled up in blue: corporate partnerships at the United Nations (download)
- The road to the Global Compact: corporate power and the battle over global public policy at the United Nations (link)- UN-business Partnerships: whose agenda counts? (download)- Citizens Compact on the United Nations and corporations (link)- The United Nations sits in suspicious company (link) 


1999
- A perilous partnership: the United Nations Development Programme's flirtation with corporate collaboration (download)
- Alliance for a Corporate-Free UN (link)