Agreed. The author has some sympathy for organisations which decide "we need to have a CoC to get X grant from body Y". And if that's the reason to have a CoC,

Agreed. The author has some sympathy for organisations which decide "we need to have a CoC to get X grant from body Y". And if that's the reason to have a CoC, of course it should be written in the appropriate HRy, ass-covering language, because that's what Y expects and is paying you for. Of course no organisation of fewer than say a hundred thousand people can actually abide by all the provisions of a HR-worthy CoC. The problem is then with the organisations that instead of saying "we have this ass-covering CoC to keep the grant, but here are the actual things we will do to enforce acceptable behaviour" escape with "we've done our bit to prevent unacceptable behaviour -- look, you can read our code of conduct".