Law Commons^™

Astroturf Activism, Melissa J. Durkee

Articles

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 …