Companies nowadays provide codes of conduct that they use as management tools. Showing their willingness to participate in maintaining social entitlements, community and environmental rights, these companies assert their corporate social responsibility. These actions are particularly interesting especially when they are led by multinational companies whose industrial activities mostly take place in southern countries. Codes of conduct are used as communication tools. The purpose of this article is to emphasize the legal aspect of these codes of conduct and try to demonstrate their strengths and weaknesses in a global economy, in which it is easy for multinational companies to bypass the legal framework, especially in social matters, with the aim of exacerbated profit.