Abstract
Sustainability is the main challenge for humanity. The current climate crisis and growing inequality are both the direct consequence of human choices and activities, particularly through the corporation. Addressing these challenges requires clarity on what we mean by sustainability and justice and precisely how the corporation contributes to the situation. Both sustainability and justice have geographic and time dimensions. Law, however, is limited because it is largely jurisdictionally based and corporate law is heavily short-term orientated. This set of circumstances creates an imperative to consider how the issue can be resolved including changes to the long-standing institutions of corporate law. This paper considers the sustainability challenges and places them in the context of justice. It argues for corporate reforms of board and shareholder structures such that rights and duties are redistributed to parties with greater interests in sustainability and justice. It then explores how that could be done and the corporation re-normed to better serve society.
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Notes
Rouch (2020).
Micheler (2021).
Chiu (2021).
Federal Constitutional Court (2021).
Sjåfjell and Bruner (2020).
Arfken and Yen (2014).
Steensma and Vermunt (2013), Vermunt and Steensma (1991).
See, for example, the dialogue in Plato (360 BCE), Bk 1.
Quoted in Berry (1971).
Gómez-Baggethun and Naredo (2015), p 385.
Sjåfjell et al. (2015).
Sheehy (2017a).
Heede (2014).
Vitali et al. (2011).
Heede (2014).
Griffin (2017).
Consider, for example, Chevron and Exxon-Mobil’s concerted disinformation campaign supporting the climate change denial industry, Dunlap and McCright (2011).
Greenfield (2005), p 39.
See, for example, Eckersley (1992).
Boulding (1966).
Meadows et al. (1972).
Norton and Toman (1997), p 555, Daly and Cobb Jr. (1989). Ecological and other heterodox economists make an important contribution. See Røpke (2005). Barry explains the rationale sharply in Barry (1997), pp 51-4. McAfee (2019) offers an optimistic case and method for reconciling aspects of this discourse.
Lozano et al. (2015).
See discussion in Bañon Gomis et al. (2011).
Barry (1997), p 54.
Bañon Gomis et al. (2011).
See discussion in Bañon Gomis et al. (2011).
Bañon Gomis et al. (2011), p 176.
Sjåfjell and Bruner (2020), p 11.
Barry (1997), p 44.
Caney (2009), p 164.
For justification, I am using Scanlon’s contractarian test. Contractarianism describes as just those actions and policies which are justifiable to another person on grounds to which the latter could not reasonably object. It places two criteria for justice: first, a person must be harmed by an action or policy, and second, the complaint about the harm must be unanswerable. Scanlon (1998).
Sheehy (2004a).
Weisbach and Sunstein (2008).
Rawls (1999), p 3.
Lamont and Favor (2017).
As opposed to ‘universally’ which has been the quest of philosophers over the millennia.
Initially identified in Aristotle, Book V, paras. 3:1131a-4:1132b. See Lamont (1941).
Scanlon (1998).
Rokeach (1973).
Page (1999).
Rawls (1958).
Contractarianism has its roots in Hobbes, whose account is based on mutual self-interest, whereas Rousseau saw contractualism as being based on egalitarianism.
An emerging third camp, in which differentiated application is justified depending on the nature of the issue under examination, appears to be underway. This paper does not need to address it given the clear global nature of the problem.
Barry (1997), p 49.
Kant (1983), p 119.
Della Porta et al. (2015), pp 6-7.
Valentini (2011), p 2.
Brock (2017).
Understanding the differences between these concepts of sustainability and sustainable development is important, Sheehy and Farneti (2021).
Chiu and Donovan (2017).
Green (1977).
Ibid.
Ibid.
Page (1999).
Ibid., p 55.
Shelley’s Case 1579-81 1 Co. Rep. 88b, 76 ER 199. For scholarly treatment, see Smith (2009).
Writing on the Duke’s case, Haskins stated: ‘[The] case marked the climax of a long struggle between the conveyancers, who wanted more freedom for the landed classes to control their estates, and the royal judges who had stood firm against those efforts for centuries. The conclusion seems inescapable that the conveyancers and their clients, not the judges, were the ultimate victors’, Haskins (1977), p 21.
Barry (1997), p 51.
Sheehy (2019), p 275.
de Sadeleer (2002), p 61.
Meadows et al. (1972).
Sheehy (2019), p 276.
Easterbrook and Fischel (1991).
Milieudefensie v Royal Dutch Shell RDS, 25 May 2021, The Hague, at para. 2.4.2. ECLI:NL:RBDHA: 2021:5339.
Translated by the BBC.
Amelang et al. (2021).
Kanbur (2019).
McAfee (2019).
Maitland (1893).
Wormser (1931).
A better view is the real person theory. Micheler (2021).
Stout et al. (2016).
Sheehy (2017a).
Bottomley (2007), chapter 5.
Set out in Sheehy (2016).
Jones and Felps (2013).
Sheehy (2017a).
See Abstract in Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers (European Commission) (2020), p i.
Piketty (2014).
Sheehy (2004a).
Arrow (1963).
Greenwood (2005).
Hilling and Ostas (2017).
See, for example, Sheehy et al. (2021).
See discussion in Hilling and Ostas (2017).
There exists a whole literature on the topic and this empowerment of the corporation as a political actor has been to a large degree the work of the courts attributing the rights developed for human citizens to corporate citizens.
Galanter (1974).
Carpenter and Moss (2013).
Milieudefensie v Royal Dutch Shell RDS, 25 May 2021, The Hague, at para. 2.4.2. ECLI:NL:RBDHA: 2021:5339., para. 4.4.16
Mac Sheoin (2014).
Soule (2009).
This view opposes the economic explanation of the corporation as being the natural and logical outcome of efficient allocation of risk and reward. Ireland (2017).
Sheehy (2004a).
Eckersley (2016), p 346.
Sheehy (2004a).
Ireland (2018).
Sheehy (2004–2005).
Wormser (1931).
Bakan (2004).
Barry (1997), p 64.
Polanyi (1944, 2001).
Amstutz (2011).
Sheehy (2017b).
Greenfield (2005), p 39.
Sheehy (2004–2005).
Bottomley (2007).
Barry (1997), p 50.
Greenfield (2005).
Ibid., p 17.
Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers (European Commission) (2020).
Ibid., p 40, along with market pressures and the shareholder primacy norm.
Ibid., p 47, at 4.3.1 General and specific policy objectives.
Ibid., p 61, at 5 Assessment of options.
Ibid., p 142, at 5.6.4 Assessment of option C6, which entails the proposal made by the Commission.
See Greenfield (2005), p 158.
Greenfield (2005).
Bottomley (2007).
Sheehy (2006).
The justice argument against investment in shares arises in political philosophy, most influentially put by Marx.
Sheehy et al. (2021).
Barry (1997), p 50.
Sheehy et al. (2021).
Sheehy et al. (forthcoming).
Yahoo!Finance (2021).
Crowley and Deveau (2021).
Sheehy and Feaver (2014).
Welling (2009).
Sheehy (2012).
See discussion in Reyes (2018), pp 165-6.
I have argued elsewhere that these social contract principles include corporations. See Sheehy (2004–2005).
Bakan (2004).
Gatti and Ondersma (2020).
Greenfield (2005).
Ibid.
Ibid.
Roe (2006).
Coase (1960).
Ibid.
Sheehy (2017a).
Sheehy (2004–2005).
Sheehy (2015).
Ostas (2004), p 594.
Hilling and Ostas (2017), p 20.
Greenfield (2005), p 37.
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Sheehy, B. Sustainability, Justice and Corporate Law: Redistributing Corporate Rights and Duties to Meet the Challenge of Sustainability. Eur Bus Org Law Rev 23, 273–312 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40804-021-00235-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40804-021-00235-x