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Full-Text Articles in Law
Interpretive Entrepreneurs, Melissa J. Durkee
Interpretive Entrepreneurs, Melissa J. Durkee
Scholarly Works
Private actors interpret legal norms, a phenomenon I call "interpretive entrepreneurship." The phenomenon is particularly significant in the international context, where many disputes are not subject to judicial resolution and there is no official system of precedent. Interpretation can affect the meaning of laws over time. For this reason, it can be a form of "post hoc" international lawmaking, worth studying alongside other forms of international lobbying and norm entrepreneurship by private actors. The Article identifies and describes the phenomenon through a series of case studies that show how, why, and by whom it unfolds. The examples focus on entrepreneurial …
Book Review: Global Lawmakers: International Organizations In The Crafting Of World Markets By Susan Block-Lieb And Terence C. Halliday, Melissa J. Durkee
Book Review: Global Lawmakers: International Organizations In The Crafting Of World Markets By Susan Block-Lieb And Terence C. Halliday, Melissa J. Durkee
Scholarly Works
Susan Block-Lieb and Terence Halliday gradually build up an empirically grounded, meticulously realized argument that individual lawmakers matter. When one allows facts to inform theory rather than the other way around, the authors show, what becomes clear is that individual lawmakers are not just governmental delegates, but a whole variety of professionals, industry association representatives, and others with some stake in the lawmaking process. These actors work not just through formal processes, but also through an array of informal ones. Most importantly, their presence matters to the content of the legal norms that take hold around the world. The book …
International Lobbying Law, Melissa J. Durkee
International Lobbying Law, Melissa J. Durkee
Scholarly Works
An idiosyncratic array of international rules allows nonstate actors to gain special access to international officials and lawmakers. Historically, many of these groups were public-interest associations like Amnesty International. For this reason, the access rules have been celebrated as a way to democratize international organizations, enhancing their legitimacy and that of the rules they produce. But a focus on the classic public-law virtues of democracy and legitimacy produces a theory at odds with the facts: The international rules rules also offer access to industry and trade associations like the World Coal Association, whose principal purpose is to lobby for their …
Astroturf Activism, Melissa J. Durkee
Astroturf Activism, Melissa J. Durkee
Scholarly Works
Corporate influence in government is more than a national issue; it is an international phenomenon. For years, businesses have been infiltrating international legal processes. They secretly lobby lawmakers through front groups: “astroturf” imitations of grassroots organizations. But because this business lobbying is covert, it has been underappreciated in both the literature and the law. This Article unearths the “astroturf activism” phenomenon. It offers an original descriptive account that classifies modes of business access to international officials and identifies harms, then develops a critical analysis of the laws that regulate this access. I show that the perplexing set of access rules …
Accountability Of Transnational Corporations Under International Standards, Lea Hanakova
Accountability Of Transnational Corporations Under International Standards, Lea Hanakova
LLM Theses and Essays
Due to the process of globalization and rapid economic evolution in the last several years, transnational corporations have become extremely powerful. There is an evident disproportion between the numerous rights enjoyed by transnational corporations and the scarce obligations undertaken by them. Given their transnational nature, transnational corporations have been successfully avoiding national regulations of both their home and host states, and they are seeking to operate in countries with the lowest standards so as to increase their profits. This has resulted in the violation of basic human rights. Therefore, there is an increasing need for the creation of international instruments …
Capital Punishment: Corporate Criminal Liability For Gross Violations Of Human Rights, Diane Marie Amann
Capital Punishment: Corporate Criminal Liability For Gross Violations Of Human Rights, Diane Marie Amann
Scholarly Works
These remarks were presented on February 24, 2001, in a panel concluding a conference entitled "Holding Multinational Corporations Responsible Under International Law" at Hastings College of the Law, San Francisco, California.