Elisa Morgera
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199558018
- eISBN:
- 9780191705311
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199558018.001.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Public International Law, Environmental and Energy Law
This book examines the highly topical question of the current and future role of international environmental law in directing and controlling the environmental conduct of business enterprises, in ...
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This book examines the highly topical question of the current and future role of international environmental law in directing and controlling the environmental conduct of business enterprises, in particular multinational corporations. It replies to this question through the identification of corporate accountability standards and their implementation by international organizations. The book examines systematically all international sources of corporate accountability standards in the specific area of environmental protection and elaborates on their theoretical and practical implications for international environmental law. The book argues that although international environmental treaties do not bind multinational corporations and other business entities, growing international practice points to the emergence of legal standards that allow adapting and translating inter-State obligations embodied in international environmental law into specific normative benchmarks to determine the legitimacy of the conduct of the private sector against internationally recognized values and rules. The book also focuses on the role of international organizations in selecting international environmental standards and promote their application to business entities, in the absence of State intervention. The book analyses the growing practice of international organizations, which are driving a process of emergence of international standards for corporate environmental accountability. Furthermore, the impact of international organizations' direct relations with the private sector is also assessed, as it significantly contributes to ensuring that private companies comply with international environmental standards.Less
This book examines the highly topical question of the current and future role of international environmental law in directing and controlling the environmental conduct of business enterprises, in particular multinational corporations. It replies to this question through the identification of corporate accountability standards and their implementation by international organizations. The book examines systematically all international sources of corporate accountability standards in the specific area of environmental protection and elaborates on their theoretical and practical implications for international environmental law. The book argues that although international environmental treaties do not bind multinational corporations and other business entities, growing international practice points to the emergence of legal standards that allow adapting and translating inter-State obligations embodied in international environmental law into specific normative benchmarks to determine the legitimacy of the conduct of the private sector against internationally recognized values and rules. The book also focuses on the role of international organizations in selecting international environmental standards and promote their application to business entities, in the absence of State intervention. The book analyses the growing practice of international organizations, which are driving a process of emergence of international standards for corporate environmental accountability. Furthermore, the impact of international organizations' direct relations with the private sector is also assessed, as it significantly contributes to ensuring that private companies comply with international environmental standards.
Elisa Morgera
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199558018
- eISBN:
- 9780191705311
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199558018.003.0002
- Subject:
- Law, Public International Law, Environmental and Energy Law
This chapter introduces the basic concepts and background references for the study. It illustrates the increasing attention of the international community at major global conferences to corporate ...
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This chapter introduces the basic concepts and background references for the study. It illustrates the increasing attention of the international community at major global conferences to corporate environmental accountability and responsibility. Corporate accountability is initially circumscribed to the answerability of private companies to public expectations based on international environmental standards. This are the reasonable means to ensure the transparency and openness to all stakeholders of private companies' operations and decision-making, and to means to encourage the prevention of environmental harm or even a proactive contribution to the attainment of sustainable development by private companies. Corporate accountability is then differentiated from the idea of corporate responsibility, which focuses more on obligations or at least on result-oriented expectations for the conduct of the private sector and which seems still much more controversial at the intergovernmental level.Less
This chapter introduces the basic concepts and background references for the study. It illustrates the increasing attention of the international community at major global conferences to corporate environmental accountability and responsibility. Corporate accountability is initially circumscribed to the answerability of private companies to public expectations based on international environmental standards. This are the reasonable means to ensure the transparency and openness to all stakeholders of private companies' operations and decision-making, and to means to encourage the prevention of environmental harm or even a proactive contribution to the attainment of sustainable development by private companies. Corporate accountability is then differentiated from the idea of corporate responsibility, which focuses more on obligations or at least on result-oriented expectations for the conduct of the private sector and which seems still much more controversial at the intergovernmental level.
Elisa Morgera
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199558018
- eISBN:
- 9780191705311
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199558018.003.0005
- Subject:
- Law, Public International Law, Environmental and Energy Law
This chapter is based on an analysis and comparison of the instruments elaborated in the framework of the United Nations and the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation. It serves to ...
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This chapter is based on an analysis and comparison of the instruments elaborated in the framework of the United Nations and the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation. It serves to assess whether a significant convergence in the choice of international environmental standards for private companies is occurring. Such assessment provides further historical and conceptual background to this research, in highlighting the different approaches adopted to ensure the responsible conduct of the private sector and the different processes and actors involved in the definition of these standards. Notwithstanding the different levels of international acceptance and the different approaches of these initiatives, the analysis of these instruments led to the identification of a striking convergence of selected international environmental standards for corporate accountability.Less
This chapter is based on an analysis and comparison of the instruments elaborated in the framework of the United Nations and the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation. It serves to assess whether a significant convergence in the choice of international environmental standards for private companies is occurring. Such assessment provides further historical and conceptual background to this research, in highlighting the different approaches adopted to ensure the responsible conduct of the private sector and the different processes and actors involved in the definition of these standards. Notwithstanding the different levels of international acceptance and the different approaches of these initiatives, the analysis of these instruments led to the identification of a striking convergence of selected international environmental standards for corporate accountability.
Elisa Morgera
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199578184
- eISBN:
- 9780191722561
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199578184.003.0021
- Subject:
- Law, Human Rights and Immigration, Public International Law
This chapter focuses on the impact of environmental human rights on foreign investors' operations and the role of intergovernmental organizations in ensuring that such operations respect ...
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This chapter focuses on the impact of environmental human rights on foreign investors' operations and the role of intergovernmental organizations in ensuring that such operations respect internationally agreed minimum standards. In the context of international practice related to corporate environmental accountability, the chapter scrutinizes the preventive role of intergovernmental organizations vis-à-vis foreign investors' actual or potential negative impacts on environmental human rights in the country in which they are operating. It explores the growing international practice spearheaded by international organizations of ‘translating’ inter-state obligations into normative benchmarks adapted to the reality of private operators, mainly foreign investors, based upon the interpretation and implementation of a combination of international soft and hard law instruments. The contribution therefore assesses the relevance for foreign investment of corporate environmental accountability.Less
This chapter focuses on the impact of environmental human rights on foreign investors' operations and the role of intergovernmental organizations in ensuring that such operations respect internationally agreed minimum standards. In the context of international practice related to corporate environmental accountability, the chapter scrutinizes the preventive role of intergovernmental organizations vis-à-vis foreign investors' actual or potential negative impacts on environmental human rights in the country in which they are operating. It explores the growing international practice spearheaded by international organizations of ‘translating’ inter-state obligations into normative benchmarks adapted to the reality of private operators, mainly foreign investors, based upon the interpretation and implementation of a combination of international soft and hard law instruments. The contribution therefore assesses the relevance for foreign investment of corporate environmental accountability.
Laura F. Spira and Judy Slinn
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199592197
- eISBN:
- 9780191764998
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199592197.001.0001
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Corporate Governance and Accountability, Business History
The Committee on the Financial Aspects of Corporate Governance, better known as the Cadbury Committee, was set up in May 1991 to address the concerns increasingly voiced at that time about how UK ...
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The Committee on the Financial Aspects of Corporate Governance, better known as the Cadbury Committee, was set up in May 1991 to address the concerns increasingly voiced at that time about how UK companies dealt with financial reporting and accountability and the wider implications of this. The Committee was sponsored by the London Stock Exchange, the Financial Reporting Council and the accountancy profession. It published its final report and recommendations in December 1992. Central to these was a Code of Best Practice and the requirement for companies to comply with it or to explain to their shareholders why they had not done so. The recommendations and the Code provided the foundation for the current system of corporate governance in the UK and have proved very influential in corporate governance developments throughout the world. While academics and practitioners have explored and discussed the developments in corporate governance since 1992, little attention has been paid to the processes of code and policy development. This book explores the origins of the Committee, provides rich insights in to the way in which it worked and documents the reaction to the publication of the Committee’s report. The issues which the Committee addressed are still of great concern: the complex relationships through which corporations are held to account have profound effects on all our lives. The Committee provided a framework for thinking about these issues and established a process through which such thinking could be articulated and continue to evolve. This book represents a major contribution to the history of the development of UK corporate governance in the late twentieth century: the why, how, what and when of corporate governance development.Less
The Committee on the Financial Aspects of Corporate Governance, better known as the Cadbury Committee, was set up in May 1991 to address the concerns increasingly voiced at that time about how UK companies dealt with financial reporting and accountability and the wider implications of this. The Committee was sponsored by the London Stock Exchange, the Financial Reporting Council and the accountancy profession. It published its final report and recommendations in December 1992. Central to these was a Code of Best Practice and the requirement for companies to comply with it or to explain to their shareholders why they had not done so. The recommendations and the Code provided the foundation for the current system of corporate governance in the UK and have proved very influential in corporate governance developments throughout the world. While academics and practitioners have explored and discussed the developments in corporate governance since 1992, little attention has been paid to the processes of code and policy development. This book explores the origins of the Committee, provides rich insights in to the way in which it worked and documents the reaction to the publication of the Committee’s report. The issues which the Committee addressed are still of great concern: the complex relationships through which corporations are held to account have profound effects on all our lives. The Committee provided a framework for thinking about these issues and established a process through which such thinking could be articulated and continue to evolve. This book represents a major contribution to the history of the development of UK corporate governance in the late twentieth century: the why, how, what and when of corporate governance development.
Olivia Radics and Carl Bruch
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- November 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198784630
- eISBN:
- 9780191827051
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198784630.003.0007
- Subject:
- Law, Public International Law, Environmental and Energy Law
This chapter explores the role of the law of pillage in the emerging body of jus post bellum with respect to temporal considerations as to its application; its relationship to the law of occupation; ...
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This chapter explores the role of the law of pillage in the emerging body of jus post bellum with respect to temporal considerations as to its application; its relationship to the law of occupation; the scope of actors to whom pillage applies; and the legal and practical implications of approaching pillage as an economic crime. The chapter discusses questions such as to what extent does the law of pillage continue to apply during the post-conflict period and to whom does it apply? Would it include unelected transitional government officials who might be found liable for making decisions on natural resource concessions? Does the law of pillage apply to occupying forces having de facto or de jure control over a country? How would it relate to immovable state property in occupation? The chapter discusses the viability of war crimes prosecutions for pillage as well as of alternative avenues of accountability.Less
This chapter explores the role of the law of pillage in the emerging body of jus post bellum with respect to temporal considerations as to its application; its relationship to the law of occupation; the scope of actors to whom pillage applies; and the legal and practical implications of approaching pillage as an economic crime. The chapter discusses questions such as to what extent does the law of pillage continue to apply during the post-conflict period and to whom does it apply? Would it include unelected transitional government officials who might be found liable for making decisions on natural resource concessions? Does the law of pillage apply to occupying forces having de facto or de jure control over a country? How would it relate to immovable state property in occupation? The chapter discusses the viability of war crimes prosecutions for pillage as well as of alternative avenues of accountability.
Caroline Heldman
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781501709203
- eISBN:
- 9781501709470
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501709203.003.0005
- Subject:
- Political Science, Democratization
This chapter examines all of the national consumer activism campaigns for environmental protection and animal rights from 2004 – 2014. These 13 campaigns involved fossil fuels, pollution, ...
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This chapter examines all of the national consumer activism campaigns for environmental protection and animal rights from 2004 – 2014. These 13 campaigns involved fossil fuels, pollution, deforestation, the killing of dolphins, and factory farming. Documentary filmmaking has played an important role in raising awareness about environmental issues and animal rights issues in the past decade. These campaigns strengthened democracy in the U.S. by increasing participation, expanding public deliberation, and advancing the will of the majority, especially pertaining to corporate operations in other countries. These campaigns also improved corporate accountability in areas regulated by the government.Less
This chapter examines all of the national consumer activism campaigns for environmental protection and animal rights from 2004 – 2014. These 13 campaigns involved fossil fuels, pollution, deforestation, the killing of dolphins, and factory farming. Documentary filmmaking has played an important role in raising awareness about environmental issues and animal rights issues in the past decade. These campaigns strengthened democracy in the U.S. by increasing participation, expanding public deliberation, and advancing the will of the majority, especially pertaining to corporate operations in other countries. These campaigns also improved corporate accountability in areas regulated by the government.
Caroline Heldman
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781501709203
- eISBN:
- 9781501709470
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501709203.003.0007
- Subject:
- Political Science, Democratization
This chapter examines 20 national conservative campaigns that used consumer activism from 2004 – 2014. These campaigns involved gun rights, abortion, opposition to LGBT rights, and a host of other ...
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This chapter examines 20 national conservative campaigns that used consumer activism from 2004 – 2014. These campaigns involved gun rights, abortion, opposition to LGBT rights, and a host of other “culture war” issues. Consumer activism continues to be mostly used by liberals, but since the 1970s, conservative organizations have organized marketplace activism more frequently to fight against shifting societal values. Conservative campaigns strengthened democracy by increasing overall rates of political participation and expanding public discussion of “culture war” issues. They also improved corporate accountability. On net, conservative use of consumer activism improves the health of democracy, but campaigns opposing LGBT rights weaken democracy by curbing minority rights and protections.Less
This chapter examines 20 national conservative campaigns that used consumer activism from 2004 – 2014. These campaigns involved gun rights, abortion, opposition to LGBT rights, and a host of other “culture war” issues. Consumer activism continues to be mostly used by liberals, but since the 1970s, conservative organizations have organized marketplace activism more frequently to fight against shifting societal values. Conservative campaigns strengthened democracy by increasing overall rates of political participation and expanding public discussion of “culture war” issues. They also improved corporate accountability. On net, conservative use of consumer activism improves the health of democracy, but campaigns opposing LGBT rights weaken democracy by curbing minority rights and protections.
Professor John Kay
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780198287889
- eISBN:
- 9780191828867
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198287889.003.0004
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Financial Economics
This chapter is concerned with the relationship between corporate strategy and corporate accountability, arguing that in Britain, and in Anglo-Saxon countries generally, there are substantial areas ...
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This chapter is concerned with the relationship between corporate strategy and corporate accountability, arguing that in Britain, and in Anglo-Saxon countries generally, there are substantial areas of weakness arising from this relationship. It reviews some of the more common fallacies about the nature and sources of competitive advantage, emphasizing that this source is a distinctive capability that is both sustainable and appropriable. The chapter next describes the characteristics of firms which fail to meet these tests of appropriability and sustainability, before considering the nature of distinctive capabilities that do meet these standards. Architecture and the governance structure are then discussed in more detail. Lastly, the chapter comments on short- and long-termisms and draws some policy implications thereof.Less
This chapter is concerned with the relationship between corporate strategy and corporate accountability, arguing that in Britain, and in Anglo-Saxon countries generally, there are substantial areas of weakness arising from this relationship. It reviews some of the more common fallacies about the nature and sources of competitive advantage, emphasizing that this source is a distinctive capability that is both sustainable and appropriable. The chapter next describes the characteristics of firms which fail to meet these tests of appropriability and sustainability, before considering the nature of distinctive capabilities that do meet these standards. Architecture and the governance structure are then discussed in more detail. Lastly, the chapter comments on short- and long-termisms and draws some policy implications thereof.
Susanna Rankin Bohme
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780520278981
- eISBN:
- 9780520959811
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520278981.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
Recent popular and scholarly efforts to make sense of globalization and address its injustices have often traced the transnational movement of commodities, showing the social relations and material ...
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Recent popular and scholarly efforts to make sense of globalization and address its injustices have often traced the transnational movement of commodities, showing the social relations and material inequalities that emerge at various points in their travels. Toxic Injustice tells a story of lived globalization through the history of one pesticide—DBCP—tracing not just its creation, circulation, and use from the 1950s to the 1980s but also the workers’ and lawyers’ efforts since the 1980s to demand justice for the harms associated with it. Chapters address the development and toxicological testing of DBCP in the United States, its use in the United States and Central America, regulations put in place after its dangers were widely recognized, and workers’ efforts to gain compensation through transnational lawsuits and national movements.Less
Recent popular and scholarly efforts to make sense of globalization and address its injustices have often traced the transnational movement of commodities, showing the social relations and material inequalities that emerge at various points in their travels. Toxic Injustice tells a story of lived globalization through the history of one pesticide—DBCP—tracing not just its creation, circulation, and use from the 1950s to the 1980s but also the workers’ and lawyers’ efforts since the 1980s to demand justice for the harms associated with it. Chapters address the development and toxicological testing of DBCP in the United States, its use in the United States and Central America, regulations put in place after its dangers were widely recognized, and workers’ efforts to gain compensation through transnational lawsuits and national movements.
J. P. Charkham
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780198287889
- eISBN:
- 9780191828867
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198287889.003.0006
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Financial Economics
This chapter argues that the role of institutional investors is crucial in matters of corporate accountability. After all, these investors, more than anyone, guard the savings of the people. Thus, ...
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This chapter argues that the role of institutional investors is crucial in matters of corporate accountability. After all, these investors, more than anyone, guard the savings of the people. Thus, the chapter provides an overview of two types of institutional investing: types A and B, with the former approach being the ideal. The chapter then explores the motivations surrounding the preference of most fund managers and trustees of one type to another. It re-examines the type A approach under such issues as free-rider problems, the internationalization of stock-markets, insider trading, responding to bids, and the fact that the type B process has become so engrained as to make change difficult.Less
This chapter argues that the role of institutional investors is crucial in matters of corporate accountability. After all, these investors, more than anyone, guard the savings of the people. Thus, the chapter provides an overview of two types of institutional investing: types A and B, with the former approach being the ideal. The chapter then explores the motivations surrounding the preference of most fund managers and trustees of one type to another. It re-examines the type A approach under such issues as free-rider problems, the internationalization of stock-markets, insider trading, responding to bids, and the fact that the type B process has become so engrained as to make change difficult.
Peter A. French
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198738534
- eISBN:
- 9780191801808
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198738534.003.0004
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Corporate Governance and Accountability
There are two different ways in which responsibility may be ascribed to an agent for the same event. One way focuses on the responsibility for some action at the time of its occurrence, and the other ...
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There are two different ways in which responsibility may be ascribed to an agent for the same event. One way focuses on the responsibility for some action at the time of its occurrence, and the other on responsibility for an action at a time subsequent to the action. The former are referred to as ascriptions of synchronic responsibility, and the latter as diachronic responsibility. This chapter examines different accounts of the right relationship between diachronic and synchronic responsibility by focusing on BP’s responsibility for the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. It is suggested that studies of self-narrative development in corporations could reveal stages of corporate cultural maturity according to the extent of illusion, delusion, falsehood, and fabrication in the self-narratives that shape corporate cultures and are relevant to diachronic responsibility.Less
There are two different ways in which responsibility may be ascribed to an agent for the same event. One way focuses on the responsibility for some action at the time of its occurrence, and the other on responsibility for an action at a time subsequent to the action. The former are referred to as ascriptions of synchronic responsibility, and the latter as diachronic responsibility. This chapter examines different accounts of the right relationship between diachronic and synchronic responsibility by focusing on BP’s responsibility for the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. It is suggested that studies of self-narrative development in corporations could reveal stages of corporate cultural maturity according to the extent of illusion, delusion, falsehood, and fabrication in the self-narratives that shape corporate cultures and are relevant to diachronic responsibility.
Susanna Rankin Bohme
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780520278981
- eISBN:
- 9780520959811
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520278981.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
A history of the pesticide DBCP in the United States and Central America, Toxic Injustice explores the production of both health inequalities and resistance in late twentieth- and early ...
More
A history of the pesticide DBCP in the United States and Central America, Toxic Injustice explores the production of both health inequalities and resistance in late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century globalization. In the 1950s and 1980s, DBCP production, regulation, and use created disproportionate risk for Central American banana workers and their—often immigrant—U.S. farmworker counterparts. Despite toxicological evidence of DBCP’s dangers, transnational fruit and chemical corporations produced, used, and sold the pesticide for nearly three decades. Exposed workers developed experiential knowledge of DBCP but had little protection and limited power over working conditions. Beginning in the 1980s, workers in Costa Rica and Nicaragua demanded compensation for sterility and for cancer and other diseases they attributed to DBCP exposure. They demanded justice at the national and transnational scales, bringing lawsuits in the United States and organizing movements at home. Throughout DBCP’s history, corporations and workers alike engaged the state in legal and scientific processes shaped by national borders and domestic democratic traditions, as well as by interstate power dynamics and an ascendant neoliberalism. The successes of the Nicaraguan and Costa Rican movements—though transitory and partial—suggest the state remains an important site of struggle over health and environment on the national and transnational scales.Less
A history of the pesticide DBCP in the United States and Central America, Toxic Injustice explores the production of both health inequalities and resistance in late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century globalization. In the 1950s and 1980s, DBCP production, regulation, and use created disproportionate risk for Central American banana workers and their—often immigrant—U.S. farmworker counterparts. Despite toxicological evidence of DBCP’s dangers, transnational fruit and chemical corporations produced, used, and sold the pesticide for nearly three decades. Exposed workers developed experiential knowledge of DBCP but had little protection and limited power over working conditions. Beginning in the 1980s, workers in Costa Rica and Nicaragua demanded compensation for sterility and for cancer and other diseases they attributed to DBCP exposure. They demanded justice at the national and transnational scales, bringing lawsuits in the United States and organizing movements at home. Throughout DBCP’s history, corporations and workers alike engaged the state in legal and scientific processes shaped by national borders and domestic democratic traditions, as well as by interstate power dynamics and an ascendant neoliberalism. The successes of the Nicaraguan and Costa Rican movements—though transitory and partial—suggest the state remains an important site of struggle over health and environment on the national and transnational scales.
