Thank you for your clear thinking in terms of drawing a distinction between illegal behavior on the part of business entities on ethical grounds as opposed to that on the part of individuals.

I do agree that the distinction to which you refer is an important one in the context of this discussion, particularly as the question raised in this discussion relates primarily to the question of the conduct of business entities (as do the vast majority of discussions on this blog).

With respect to the conduct of business entities, I can certainly see your point in terms of the ‘murky territory’ as you put it that we enter when business entities feel that it is OK not to observe certain requirements of the law simply on the basis of inconsistencies between the law and their world view. And of course, business entities who are not comfortable with certain legal aspects in certain countries can indeed refuse to operate in such countries.

Nevertheless, I am inclined to (respectfully) disagree with your viewpoint in relation to this matter. I would think that there would be some circumstances (albeit an extremely limited range of circumstances) where business entities would be right, from an ethical viewpoint, in disregarding certain legal requirements, especially in cases like the second example that I mentioned, whereby there exists a very real prospect that compliance with requirements to provide sensitive information about individuals to government agencies may potentially place the physical safety of the individuals concerned in jeopardy.

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I believe that businesses as defined above should respect the laws of the countries in which they operate, even if they are considered unethical by the operating company. A law is a law. For example, a business may not agree with China’s laws, but if it is operating within their country, it must follow them.

The danger lies in what is ethical and what is not. Let’s say a Saudi business comes to the US and decides that one of our laws is unethical and decides to disregard it. Is this okay? Perhaps in Saudi Arabia, everyone would agree that Law A is unethical, but everyone in the US would say it IS ethical. I think this is murky territory and opens a can of worms where businesses can decide which laws are okay and which are not.

If a business cannot operate legally in a country, for whatever reason, then it should either not enter the country in the first place or remove operations altogether.

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You would receive few disagreements about your last point.

To be sure, I could certainly understand why any country would consider any form of breach of their entry related laws on the part of foreigners to be a serious issue. But even assuming that the two actually did enter the country (which they would have been ethically justified in doing if that’s what they had to do to properly cover the story), twelve years of hard labor is simply a ridiculous punishment.

Fred,

Agree with you there, journalists who operate in countries like Zimbabwe, North Korea and Myanmar deserve a medal.

Brad,

Very good point, and although there are some cases whereby moral law will not be clear, there are also cases where moral law is clear cut, and in regimes where civil law blatantly violates any form of decency, we do have an obligation to follow moral law as opposed to civil law.

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