Apple's Tim Cook encourages corporate action to improve human rights

CEO told executives at BoxWorks conference that businesses must helm progress where government has stalled: 'This is not making a partisan statement'

Tim Cook has told a conference of business executives that American corporations have a responsibility to help improve equality, the environment and public education because of a lack of government progress in the past few decades.

Speaking at the BoxWorks conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, Cook insisted his position was not partisan but that equality should not still be an issue in 2015.