Transnational Law Commons^™

Can Non-State Regulatory Authority Improve Domestic Forest Sustainability? Assessing Interactive Pathways Of Influence In Cameroon, Sophia Carodenuto, Benjamin Cashore

Transnational Business Governance Interactions Working Papers

Transnational business governance can involve the use of non-state mechanisms to target the behavior of firms within domestic settings. Drawing on the implementation pillar of the TGBI framework, this chapter focuses attention on the interaction between state and non-state regulatory authority from two leading cases of TBG in tropical forest management: climate mitigation through avoided deforestation (REDD+) and timber legality verification through international trade agreements (FLEGT/VPA). A dominant justification among global elites for both interventions is that empowering marginalized domestic groups through technology transfer and capacity building will lead to more durable policy solutions on the ground. Drawing on empirical …

Transnational Business Governance Interactions And Financial Regulation Change: A Case Of Asian Financial Markets, Simin Gao, Christopher Chen

Transnational Business Governance Interactions Working Papers

This chapter examines the interactions of transnational business governance schemes regulating the global derivatives markets with multiple levels of interactions. The chapter describes the process of interactions via the theory of isomorphism. First, after examining the interactions of futures exchanges, we identify that governance techniques among futures exchanges are rather similar, illustrating the forces of mimetic and normative isomorphism. Second, the monopoly of the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) scheme in the over-the-counter (OTC) market provides signs of mimetic isomorphism. Third, through imparity of market power and major market dealers, the ISDA scheme became the only governance scheme for …

Micro-Level Interactions In The Compliance Processes Of Transnational Private Governance, Graeme Auld, Stefan Renckens

Transnational Business Governance Interactions Working Papers

Transnational private governance has emerged in multiple issue areas to promote responsible business practices. While most studies assess its rule-setting function, much less research has been done on the compliance-assessment function. This chapter examines the various actors that are involved in this process—auditors, individual assessors and, to a lesser extent, accreditors—and their respective interactions. Using the Marine Stewardship Council as an empirical case, the chapter examines the level of competition among accredited auditors and assessors, and the degree of organizational interdependence. It argues that while the number of accredited auditors has increased over time, the degree of competition is rather …

Transnational Delegation, Accountability And The Administrative Governance Of Biofuel Standards, Phillip Paiement

Transnational Business Governance Interactions Working Papers

The European Union’s 2009 Renewable Energy Directive delegated to privately run ‘voluntary schemes’ the task of monitoring biomass production sites and ensuring their compliance with the Directive’s sustainability requirements. This chapter assesses the consequences of the Commission’s delegation for the administrative governance architectures of non-state sustainable biofuel standards operating outside the EU, focusing in particular on the effects this governance interaction has on the involvement of vulnerable stakeholders in the governance of sustainable biofuels. Utilizing the Transnational Business Governance Interactions framework complemented by the theory of governance assemblages, this research provides a meso-level analysis of the character and effects of …

Tax In The World Of Antitrust Enforcement: European Commission’S State Aid Investigations Into Eu Member States’ Tax Rulings, Nina Hrushko

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

In August 2016, after a two-year investigation, the European Commission issued a negative State aid ruling against Ireland, finding that the country had provided illegal tax benefits to Apple Inc. and requesting the government to collect €13 billion in retroactive taxes from the company. This decision sparked a heated debate around the globe about the European Commission’s authority to interfere into the individual EU Member States’ fiscal policies and order retroactive tax recoveries. This Note explores the application of EU State aid rules to tax laws and, in particular, EU Member States’ tax rulings, and discusses the European Commission’s investigations …

Governance Interactions In Sustainable Supply Chain Management, Errol Meidinger

Transnational Business Governance Interactions Working Papers

“Supply chains” are a major site of transnational business governance, and yet their dynamics and effectiveness are usually more assumed than interrogated in regulatory governance discourse. The very term “chain” implies a more determinist and simplistic understanding of supply relationships than is empirically supportable. Supply chains in practice are complex, dynamic, and highly variable networks. Based on peer-group presentations by over 60 supply chain professionals, this paper analyzes sustainable supply chain management practices in terms of the interactions conceptions of the Transnational Business Governance Interactions framework. It discusses possible refinements of the framework and suggests that sustainable supply chain management …

Putting The Substance Back Into The Economic Substance Doctrine, Nicholas Giordano

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

The foreign tax credit, which saves U.S. taxpayers from paying both foreign and domestic income taxes on the same income, is critical to facilitating global commerce. However, as savvy taxpayers discover increasingly complicated ways to abuse the foreign tax credit regime through the structuring of business transactions, courts have become increasingly skeptical of the validity of those transactions. Using the economic substance doctrine, a common law doctrine codified in 2010 at I.R.C. § 7701(o), courts will disallow tax benefits stemming from a transaction that is not profitable absent its tax benefits, and which the taxpayer had no incentive to undertake …

Business Responsibilities For Human Rights And Climate Change - A Contribution To The Work Of The Study Group On Business And Human Rights Of The International Law Association, Sara L. Seck

Reports & Public Policy Documents

This contribution to the work of the International Law Association’s Study Group on Business and Human Rights considers the relationship between business responsibilities for human rights and climate change. While it is now widely accepted that the adverse effects of climate change undermine the enjoyment of human rights, and that businesses have a responsibility to respect human rights, the relationship between business responsibilities for human rights and climate change is unclear. This paper first considers state duties to protect human rights from climate change harms, including harms arising from business activities, and second, considers how the business responsibility to respect …

The Andean Foreign Investment Code: An Overview, Lloyd Pike

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Expropriation - Compensation - Agreement Reached Between The Government Of The United States Of America And The Government Of Peru On $76 Million As Compensation For Expropriated Properties Of United States Nationals, William M. Phillippe

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Book Review: International Licensing Agreements. Edited By Gótz M. Pollzien And Eugen Langen. Indianapolis And New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., 2d Ed. 1971. Pp. Xlvi, 593. $35.00., William M. Poole

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Foreign Investment Protection And Icsid Arbitration, Charles Vuylsteke

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Hanging Together: A Multilateral Approach To Taxing Multinationals, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

The recent revelation that many multinational enterprises (MNEs) pay very little tax to the countries they operate in has led to various proposals to change the ways they are taxed. Most of these proposals, however, do not address the fundamental flaws in the international tax regime that allow companies like Apple or Starbucks to legally avoid taxation. In particular, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has been working on a Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project and is supposed to make recommendations to the G20, but it is not clear yet whether this will result in a …

The Judicial Role In Extraterritorial Application Of The Securities Exchange Act Of 1934: Vesco, William A. Aileo

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Conference Summary: Problems And Prospects Of Trade With Eastern Europe And China, Chesterfield H. Smith, William C. Mott, William J. Casey, Philip M. Landrum, Jacobus T. Severiens, Dean Rusk, Evgeniy V. Bugrov, Andrzej B. Burzynski, Gabriel M. Wilner, Peter M. Flanigan, Benjamin Busch, Victor Hoa Li, Graham Metson, Donald Clark, Reg Murphy, Charles Hodgkins, C.C. Van Den Heuvel, Jeremy Russell, David Winter

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

A Critique Of Saudi M&A Laws, Mulhim Hamad Almulhim

SJD Dissertations

This dissertation aims to elucidate Saudi Arabia’s mergers and acquisitions (M&A) laws. The dissertation studies and analyzes current Saudi M&A laws with reference to comparative models from different countries and provides recommendations to improve the transparency and efficiency of Saudi Arabia’s M&A laws. Such improvements may help companies attempting to conduct M&A activity in Saudi Arabia address certain barriers and difficulties, which may in turn help to stimulate the Saudi Arabian economy.

Saudi Arabia is considered one of the world’s foremost emerging markets. Since Saudi Arabia joined the World Trade Organization, its stock market has been growing quickly, including rapid …

Recent Developments And Future Prospects Of The Common Market, Michael Waelbroeck

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

The Business Of Art Theft: Assessing Auction House Standard Of Care And The Sale Of Stolen Cultural Property, Alexandra M.S. Wilson

American University Business Law Review

No abstract provided.

Open Sesame: The Myth Of Alibaba's Extreme Corporate Governance And Control, Yu-Hsin Lin, Thomas Mehaffy

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

In September 2014, Alibaba Group Holding Limited (Alibaba) successfully launched a $25 billion initial public offering (IPO), the largest IPO ever, on New York Stock Exchange. Alibaba’s IPO success witnessed a wave among Chinese Internet companies to raise capital in U.S capital markets. A significant number of these companies have employed a novel, but poorly understood corporate ownership and control mechanism—the variable interest entity (VIE) structure and/or the disproportional control structure. The VIE structure was created in response to the Chinese restriction on foreign investments; however, it carries the risk of being declared illegal under Chinese law. The disproportional control …

The Business Of Treaties, Melissa J. Durkee

Articles

Business entities play important and underappreciated roles in the production of international treaties. At the same time, international treaty law is hobbled by state-centric presumptions that render its response to business ad hoc and unprincipled.

This Article makes three principal contributions. First, it draws from case studies to demonstrate the significance of business participation in treaty production. The descriptive account invites a shift from attention to traditional lobbying at the domestic level and private standard-setting at the transnational level to the ways business entities have become autonomous international actors, using a panoply of means to transform their preferred policies into …

Dialogic Labor Regulation In The Global Supply Chain, Kevin Kolben

Michigan Journal of International Law

In May 2006, the government of Jordan was facing a crisis. A small U.S. labor-rights activist group had just released a damning report documenting extensive labor abuses in Jordan’s fledgling garment industry. Adding fuel to the fire, the New York Times published a front-page story about the report with its own field work that corroborated some of the allegations, such as long and abusive working hours, the confiscation of passports of foreign workers, horrendous living conditions, and sexual harassment. Although garment manufacturing was new to Jordan, after just several years of existence it already constituted an important part of Jordan’s …

The Multinational Corporation Regulatory Guidebook, Rhond R. Roth

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Is There Anybody Out There? Analyzing The Regulation Of Children’S Privacy Online In The United States Of America And The European Union According To The Tbgi Analytical Framework By Eberlein Et Al, Nachshon Goltz

Transnational Business Governance Interactions Working Papers

This article analyzes the regulation of children’s privacy online, especially in the context of personal information collection as a commodity, in the United States of America (USA) and the European Union (EU) according to the Transnational Business Governance Interactions analytical framework proposed by Eberlein et al. This article reviews the regulatory structure of the field in these two jurisdictions, including global organizations, according to Elberlein et al components and questions. In the analysis, a map of the regulatory interactions within this global realm will be presented and discussed. Analysis of the influence of each interacting party and the degree of …

Transnational Governance Interactions: A Critical Review Of The Legal Literature, Stepan Wood

Transnational Business Governance Interactions Working Papers

Overlaps and interactions among diverse legal rules, actors and orders have long preoccupied legal scholars. This preoccupation has intensified in recent years as transnational efforts to regulate business have proliferated. This proliferation has led to increasingly frequent and intense interactions among transnational regulatory actors and programs. These transnational business governance interactions (TBGI) are the subject of an emerging interdisciplinary research agenda. This paper situates the TBGI research agenda in the broader field of transnational legal theory by presenting a critical review of the ways in which legal scholars have addressed the phenomenon of governance interactions. Legal scholars frequently recognize the …

Transnational Governance Interactions: A Critical Review Of The Legal Literature, Stepan Wood

Transnational Business Governance Interactions Working Papers

Overlaps and interactions among diverse legal rules, actors and orders have long preoccupied legal scholars. This preoccupation has intensified in recent years as transnational efforts to regulate business have proliferated. This proliferation has led to increasingly frequent and intense interactions among transnational regulatory actors and programs. These transnational business governance interactions (TBGI) are the subject of an emerging interdisciplinary research agenda. This paper situates the TBGI research agenda in the broader field of transnational legal theory by presenting a critical review of the ways in which legal scholars have addressed the phenomenon of governance interactions. Legal scholars frequently recognize the …

Liquidity, Systemic Risk, And The Bankruptcy Treatment Of Financial Contracts, Rizwaan J. Mokal

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

No abstract provided.

Outcome Report Of Roundtable On Human Rights Impact Assessments (Hrias) Of Large-Scale Foreign Investments, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

CCSI, the Sciences Po Law School Clinic, and the Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute recently published an outcome document of a one-day roundtable focused on the opportunities and challenges presented by human rights impact assessments (HRIAs) of large-scale foreign investments. The roundtable, which was held in April 2014 at Columbia University, provided an opportunity for collaborative reflection on the development of HRIAs, as well as on ways to enhance HRIAs as a framework and tool for both human rights advocacy and human rights risk management in respect of foreign investments.

By sharing the outcomes of the roundtable, this document …

Age Discrimination--Extraterritorial Application Of The Age Discrimination In Employment Act--Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Determines That A United States Corporation Operating In West Germany Is Subject To Suit Under The Age Discrimination In Employment Act--Employer's Defense Based On Compliance With West German Law Rejected, Chris Lauderdale

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

The Timing And Source Of Regulation, Frank Partnoy

Seattle University Law Review

The distinction between specific concrete rules and general abstract principles has engaged legal theorists for decades. This rules–principles distinction has also become increasingly important in corporate and securities law, as well as financial market regulation. This Article adds two important variables to the rules–principles debate: timing and source. Although these two variables are relevant to legal theory generally, the specific goal here is not to address and engage the rules versus principles literature directly. Rather, the goal here is to ask whether the debate about financial market regulation might benefit from a more transparent analysis of temporal and legal source …

Culture Wars: Rate Manipulation, Institutional Corruption, And The Lost Normative Foundations Of Market Conduct Regulation, Justin O'Brien

Seattle University Law Review

The global investigations into the manipulation of the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) have raised significant questions about how conflicts of interest are managed for regulated entities contributing to benchmarks. An alternative framework, which brings the management of the rate process under direct regulatory supervision, is under consideration, coordinated by the International Organization of Securities Commissions taskforce. The articulation of global principles builds on a review commissioned by the British government that suggests rates calculated by submission can be reformed. This paper argues that this approach is predestined to fail, precisely because it ignores the lessons of history. In revisiting …