Daniel Augenstein on "Free Trade, Football and Beer: What’s in for Human Rights?"

My friend and colleague Daniel Augenstein is Associate Professor in the Department of European and International Public Law at Tilburg University. He presently works as a Senior Humboldt Research Fellow at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin on a monograph on business and human rights. Contact: D.H.Augenstein@uvt.nl.

Professor Augenstein has been at the forefront of intellectual movements in law and society for a number of years. His research focuses on human rights in their national-constitutional, trans-national and international contexts. It inquires the potential and limitations of effective human rights protection in a globalised world where different domestic, European and international human rights regimes become increasingly interconnected. His writings are always worth reading carefully.

He has recently produced a fascinating essay for Law at the End of the Day: "Free Trade, Football and Beer: What’s in for Human Rights?" It appears below.

New Paper Posted: A Lex Mercatoria for Corporate Social Responsibility Codes without the State?: On the Regulatory Character of Private Corporate Codes

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2015)

The legalization of the societal sphere accelerates as the logic of economic globalization becomes better established in interactions between and among states, enterprises, and individuals. Nowhere is the project of legalization more apparent than in the context of the legal effects of the social obligations of enterprises. This legalization of CSR has taken a number of forms. Yet all of them point to a singular end--to embed corporate social obligation within the domestic legal orders of states.

I have prepared an essay that considers some of these issues: A Lex Mercatoria for Corporate Social Responsibility Codes without the State?: On the Regulatory Character of Private Corporate Codes.

The abstract follows and may be accessed via SSRN HERE.

Comments and discussion welcome.

Indonesian Company PT Astra International Tbk Placed Under Observation (Severe Environmental Risks) by the Norwegian Pension Fund Global (SWF) Investment Universe

(Wikipedia Commons; Black lory (Chalcopsitta atra), Gembira Loka Zoo, Yogyakarta 2015-03-15;Crisco 1492 )

The Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund has announced that it will be putting a company under observation for severe environmental risks) in a context in which the usual approach had been the exclusion of such companies from its investment universe. This Press Release from Norges Bank for the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund

Today, Norges Bank has published its decision to place the Indonesian company PT Astra International Tbk under observation because of the risk of the company being responsible for severe environmental damage associated with the conversion of tropical forest into oil palm plantations.

On 15 January 2014, the Council on Ethics recommended the Ministry of Finance to exclude the company PT Astra International Tbk.

On 1 January 2015 new Guidelines for Observation and exclusion from the Government Pension Fund Global came into force. As set out in the new Guidelines, the Council on Ethics shall submit recommendations on the exclusion or observation of companies to Norges Bank. In its recommendation to the Bank dated 23 June 2015, the Council on Ethics updated its previous recommendation and recommended the observation of the company. The Council writes:

“The Council on Ethics for the Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG) recommends that PT Astra International Tbk be placed under observation due to the risk that the company may be responsible for severe environmental damage. The observation relates to the company’s plantation operation in Indonesia. On 11 June 2015, Astra announced that it would immediately be ceasing all logging and land conversion while developing a new sustainability strategy. The company has also stated that it will avoid deforestation in future. In view of the company’s previous policy and uncertainty as to the material impact of the change in the company’s strategy, the Council has concluded that the company should be placed under observation. The Council recommends an observation period of four years to allow the progress and impact of the company’s new policy to be assessed.”

Please find Norges Bank’s decision here http://www.norges-bank.no/en/Published/News-archive/2015/2015-10-13-company-under-observation/

Please find the Council’s recommendations here http://etikkradet.no/en/recommendation-from-2014-and-2015-on-the-exclusion-and-observation-of-pt-astra-international-tbk/

The post includes some thoughts on the decision and the Summary portion of the Ethics Council Recommendation. This action may represent a potentially substantial change in action outlook by the Norwegian SWF (compare IJM Corp Bhd, Genting Bhd, POSCO and Daewoo International Corp Excluded from Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund).

Managing Civil Society--Next Generation NGO Laws and Resistance to the Internationalization of Civil Society and its Normative Elements

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2015)

I have been posting about China's recent release of its draft Foreign NGO law (see, e.g., here and here; and  here for my Commentary on the Draft). My point was that civil society, and especially civil society that operates in one state with funds provided by another, or that represent a local branch of a transnational civil society enterprise, could be helpful, and indeed instrumental, in moving local society forward, but only along the path that society has chosen for itself.  When civil society moves from developing productive forces, or monitoring the effectiveness of governments to do as they have promised, then civil society runs the risk of response from governments that might be sensitive to foreign pressure for political reform.  Flora Sapio put is best in the Chinese context:

Foreign funded NGOs are talking to the Party-state, and the Party-state is listening and responding to them. The message that comes to the Party-state – rather than the whims of individual Party secretaries – is what determines its response. If the message is seen as threatening, the Party-state's response will be defensive, and we know how states defend themselves by arresting or expelling those who are seen as posing a threat to them, even though the threat may often be more imagined than real. Voicing a trivial demand to install more public toilets by referring to the political system of the US or the EU will likely result in an angered response by the state, because the choice of such demands and language carries definite implications. (Flora Sapio on the Chinese Draft Foreign NGO Management Law (中华人民共和国境外非政府组织管理法（草案）（二次审议稿).

But the Chinese response to NGO activity is best viewed in a broader context, and as part of a larger global efforts by states to resist internationalization of politics and retain a greater control of their own internal development within the logic of the politician systems on which they are founded. Russia and Cambodia, for quite distinct reasons have also sought to manage their civil societies more to the liking of the political elites who run those states. The latest state to consider more extensive management of civil society is Kazakhstan, which seeks to deploy the administrative techniques of registration and funding to better align the behavior of civil society to the interests of the state apparatus. 

This post considers the Kazakh NGO law, and the international response to it, int he context of the power balances that these efforts may represent--not just for alignments of power within states, but also for the consequences for the development of global systems of monitoring and disciplining transnational economic activity. 

Part 30 (Party Building--CCP Leadership) --On a Constitutional Theory for China--From the General Program of the Chinese Communist Party to Political Theory

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer)

This Blog Essay site devotes every February to a series of integrated but short essays on a single theme. For 2015 this site introduces a new theme: On a Constitutional Theory for China--From the General Program of the Chinese Communist Party to Political Theory.

This Post includes Part 30, CCP Party Building--CCP Leadership. It considers Paragraph 28 of the General Program.


Table of Contents

Part 29 (Party Building--Collectivity in Decision Making: Democratic Centralism) --On a Constitutional Theory for China--From the General Program of the Chinese Communist Party to Political Theory

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer)

This Blog Essay site devotes every February to a series of integrated but short essays on a single theme. For 2015 this site introduces a new theme: On a Constitutional Theory for China--From the General Program of the Chinese Communist Party to Political Theory.

This Post includes Part 29, CCP Party Building--Democratic Centralism. It considers Paragraph 27 of the General Program.

Table of Contents

Part 28 (Party Building--Serving the People; the "Mass Line") --On a Constitutional Theory for China--From the General Program of the Chinese Communist Party to Political Theory

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer)

This Blog Essay site devotes every February to a series of integrated but short essays on a single theme. For 2015 this site introduces a new theme: On a Constitutional Theory for China--From the General Program of the Chinese Communist Party to Political Theory.

This Post includes Part 28, CCP Party Building--The Mass Line. It considers Paragraph 26 of the General Program.

Table of Contents

Part 27 (Party Building--Integrating Theory and Practice) --On a Constitutional Theory for China--From the General Program of the Chinese Communist Party to Political Theory

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer)

This Blog Essay site devotes every February to a series of integrated but short essays on a single theme. For 2015 this site introduces a new theme: On a Constitutional Theory for China--From the General Program of the Chinese Communist Party to Political Theory.

This Post includes Part 27, CCP Party Building--Integrating Theory and Practice. It considers Paragraph 25 of the General Program.

Table of Contents