Law Commons^™

Corporate Purpose Beyond Borders: A Key To Saving Our Planet Or Colonialism Repackaged?, Roza Nurgozhayeva, Dan W. Puchniak

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The “corporate purpose” debate, while extremely important, has largely been built on an understanding of corporate law and governance that is local – jurisdiction bound – while the issue of climate change is global; pollution does not respect jurisdictional borders. Despite this, in practice, states, multinational corporations, and transnational organizations are increasingly using formal and informal mechanisms to shape sustainable corporate governance beyond jurisdictional borders – a colossal development that has been hiding in plain sight.This article develops a taxonomy for identifying and analyzing the forces driving corporate purpose beyond borders: state-based, firm-based, and organization-based “global corporate law and governance”. …

Competition Among Purposes: The Chinese Experience In The Governance Of Climate Change And Energy Transition, Henry S. Gao, Weihuan Zhou

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Energy governance at the international level is fraught with difficulties due to the 'competition among purposes' between different bodies of international law. In this paper, we extend this thesis to argue that the same tension may be found in domestic energy governance. Drawing from China's experience in the governance of climate change and energy transition, we analyse how the misalignment of incentives between different actors and the incomplete market reform led to a drastic shift in policy in 2021. We also compare the different approaches in China's energy governance and trade governance and draw some general lessons on how developing …

Sustainability In Public Procurement, Corporate Law And Higher Education (Introduction), Paolo Davide Farah

Book Chapters

Lela Mélon’s edited collection brings a fresh perspective to the intricate relationship between corporations and sustainability. The book focuses on the role of state actors in boosting environmental protection and the increasing importance of state awareness on environmental crises. Whether it is procurement, or education or corporate governance, we are witnessing a proactive stance of the state that is balancing economic growth with ecological concerns. The difficulties faced in forcing a particular conduct in the private sphere is reviewed in detail in the book, along with national laws and regulations that, rather than promoting environmental protection, have had the opposite …

Climate Chauvinism: Rethinking Loss & Damage, Nadia B. Ahmad, Victoria Beatty

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Of Lock-Breaking And Stock Taking: Ip, Climate Change And The Right To Repair In Canada, Graham Reynolds

All Faculty Publications

This paper argues that Canadian governments have both legal and moral obligations to act to combat climate change. In seeking to fulfill these obligations, Canadian governments should pay particular attention to Canada’s intellectual property (IP) regime. This paper argues that given the centrality of IP to Canada’s economy, a comprehensive review is required in order to determine whether and the extent to which elements of Canada’s IP regime contribute to climate change or impede climate action. To illustrate the need for such a review, this paper will highlight one example of how Canada’s IP regime, as currently structured, impedes the …

Industry Groups In International Governance: A Framework For Reform, Melinda (M.J.) Durkee

Scholarship@WashULaw

The Sustainable Development Goals and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights encourage engaging with businesses as partners in important global governance agendas. Indeed, many international organizations are now partnering with business groups to secure funding and private sector engagement. At the same time, reforms at the World Health Organization, Food and Agriculture Organization and others seek to restrain the dangers of mission distortion and capture by business groups. Shareholders at major multinational oil and gas companies also recognize these dangers and seek to rein in lobbying that is at odds with the goals of the Paris Climate …

The Transnational Exchange Of Law Through Climate Change Litigation, Natasha Affolder, Godwin Dzah

All Faculty Publications

Climate change litigation continues to bash holes in the view of domestic legal systems as hermetically sealed units. Domestic cases are inspired by litigation elsewhere, actively fostered by transnational advocacy communities, and the decisions themselves are indicative of transjudicial influences and sometimes even dialogue on climate change. This chapter, written in 2021 to reflect the transnationalism of early climate change litigation, takes a close look at practices of transjudicialism in climate change litigation. In so doing, it seeks to disrupt some default patterns of studying the spread of law. By problematizing the practices of ‘finding’ influential climate law cases, measuring …

The Pledging World Order, Melinda (M.J.) Durkee

Scholarship@WashULaw

There is an emerging world order characterized by unilateral pledges within a legal or “legal-ish” architecture of commitments. The pledging world order has materialized in the international legal response to climate change and in other diverse sites. It crosses and blurs the public-private divide. It erodes distinctions between multilateralism and localism, law and not-law, and progress and stasis. It is both a symptom of and a contributor to the dismantling of the Westphalian and postwar orders. Its report card is mixed: While pledging can be highly ineffective as a legal technology, the pledging world order may respond to some legitimacy …

The Intentional Community: Toward Inclusion And Climate-Cognizance, Shelby D. Green

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In adapting communities to new levels of fairness, we must resist the notion that building equitable and accessible communities is antagonistic to building climate-cognizant communities. This paper will raise some of the core points in this endeavor and will offer suggestions for finding harmony between the two ends through creating communities with intention.

In Part I, I offer some details on what climate change, if unheeded, portends most in our daily lives. In Part II, I tell tales of two cities to frame the larger discussion. In Part III, I highlight some social, political, and economic history that produced a …

Research Priorities For Climate Litigation, Jessica A. Wentz, Delta Merner, Benjamin Franta, Alessandra Lehmen, Peter C. Frumhoff

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

This article characterizes key research gaps and opportunities for scientists across disciplines to do work that informs the rapidly growing number of climate lawsuits worldwide. It focuses on research that can be used to inform legal decisions about responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions and climate damages. Relevant lawsuits include claims filed against government and corporate defendants alleging that they have violated environmental, human rights, constitutional, tort, and consumer protection laws due to their contributions to climate change and failures to control emissions. Constructive attention has recently been given to the important role of attribution science in informing some of these …

Urgenda Vs. Juliana: Lessons For Future Climate Change Litigation Cases, Paolo Davide Farah, Imad Antoine Ibrahim

Articles

No abstract provided.

Climate Justice In The Anthropocene And Its Relationship With Science And Technology: The Importance Of Ethics Of Responsibility, Paolo Davide Farah, Alessio Lo Giudice

Articles

Climate change is a global phenomenon. Therefore, globalization is the necessary hermeneutical horizon to develop an analysis of the metamorphosis climate change could cause at a political, social, and economic level. Within this horizon, this Article shows how the relationship between the concept of the Anthropocene epoch and the request for justice allows for framing a climate-justice and intergenerational equity–focused political interpretation of the effects of climate change. In order to avoid reducing such an interpretation to merely an ideological critique of capitalism, the conception of climate justice needs to be grounded in a rational, ethical model. This Article proposes …