Law Commons^™

Corporate Hypergoals, Sustainable Peace, And The Adapted Firm, Thomas W. Dunfee, Timothy L. Fort

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Hypergoals are a set of specifiable goals applicable to all publicly-owned, for-profit corporations independent of their purpose, type, business, or legal governance. The identification of hypergoals should be limited to those factors for which a plausible empirical case can be made concerning their role as essential foundations for efficient business interaction. In the context of hypergoals, corporations have a role to play in working toward global, sustainable peace. In working toward the hypergoal of sustainable peace, corporations must attend to two tiers: an immediate, short-term orientation to foster solidarity with local populations in which the corporation works and a longer-term …

Corporate Governance And Sustainable Peace: An Insider's View, Marina N. Whitman

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The Author brings her 30 years of experience as a member of numerous corporate boards of directors to bear on the relationship between corporate governance and sustainable peace. In the Author's experience, over the last three decades corporate boards have become more diverse not only in terms of race and gender, but also through a greater focus on international participation. This diversity has led to concern for a broader set of stakeholders and, in many cases, these boards are presently conducting the affairs of their corporations in a more socially-responsible fashion. Despite these gains, however, the Author concedes that recent …

Adapting Corporate Governance For Sustainable Peace, Timothy L. Fort, Cindy A. Schipani

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Acts of violence toward multinational corporations have important consequences for the way these companies will need to structure their approach to international business. This Article proposes four contributions that corporations can make to sustainable peace. By incorporating sustainable peace as a business objective, multinational corporations may be able to blend extant corporate governance principles with a goal that can significantly contribute to the reduction of violence in society.

Corporate Governance And Sustainable Peace, Timothy L. Fort, Cindy A. Schipani

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The Articles and Commentary in this Symposium are another step in a series of conferences exploring dimensions of business influence on sustainable peace. As is often the case with new intellectual initiatives, each step seems to open new doors of insight and new sets of questions. Other presentations delivered at this conference included discussions of how one could design architectural plans in keeping with company goals, while others focused on the development of compassion, forgiveness, and voice. Still others connected the topic to notions of ethical compliance models, dispute resolution, corporate citizenship, and economic development.

Beyond these notions, of course, …

Conceptions Of The Corporation And The Prospects Of Sustainable Peace, Jeffrey Nesteruk

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article examines the role of corporate law in promoting sustainable peace. The Author argues that corporate legal theory can make a distinctive contribution to a more peaceful world by exposing some deeper roots of corporate law doctrines. Beginning with a brief overview of the corporation in legal discourse, the Article addresses the corporation as property, person, contract, and community. Next, the Article explores the significance of legal language, detailing the ways the law, through language, constructs and impacts the "character," "culture," and "community" of society. The Article then analyzes the dominance that the property and contract conceptions of the …

Interview: The Business Of Peace, Madeleine Albright, Former Secretary Of State, B. Joseph White

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

I think the thing that we have really seen, Joe, recently, is the fact that we have global companies that are situated everywhere and are very much a part of the societies in which they operate. The way that they can contribute is by really embedding themselves in the local communities and by providing economic support within those communities to help mitigate some of the aspects of poverty within that particular milieu where they are operating. They can contribute by basically making it clear to people that we are all part of the same story. Just because you may be …