International companies have responded favourably to calls for binding human rights standards in the corporate sector as evidence mounts that voluntary guidelines are unfair and bad for business, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday...The global watchdog, laun­ching its annual report in Washington, said multinational executives were privately starting to question the conventional wisdom that self-regulation and codes of conduct were sufficient. Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch’s executive director, told the FT that companies had responded positively to the campaign, launched last year, for a level playing-field of enforceable global standards. [refers to Metalor Technologies]