Reflexiones sobre el informe del Grupo de Trabajo sobre la cuestión de los derechos humanos y las empresas transnacionales y otras empresas: Gobierno corporativo, empresas y derechos humanos (A/81/180/UNGA, 14 de julio de 2026)

 ENGLISH LANGUAGE VERSION HERE

El Informe del Grupo de Trabajo sobre la cuestión de los derechos humanos y las empresas transnacionales y otras empresas — Gobernanza corporativa, empresas y derechos humanos, presentado en el 81.° período de sesiones de la Asamblea General — versa sobre los deberes de los directores y las responsabilidades de los altos ejecutivos en las grandes empresas. Su informe refleja un consenso de élites, al menos dentro de la comunidad de empresas y derechos humanos y sus partidarios en el aparato administrativo de los Estados, así como entre académicos y amplios segmentos del sector de la sociedad civil global. Ya solo por esa razón, merece ser tomado en serio, y seriamente examinado en lo que plantea, en lo que vela, y en las consecuencias que pueden derivarse de supuestos que permanecen críticamente sin examinar.

El Informe es un documento sofisticado dentro de su propio sistema semiótico — la expresión más avanzada del marco de los Principios Rectores aplicado a la gobernanza corporativa. Pero su sistema operativo interno se encuentra constreñido por su compromiso fundacional con el Estado como primeridad semiótica, la legalidad como segundidad semiótica, y el marco de los Principios Rectores como terceridad semiótica. No puede observar la empresa como un sistema de gobernanza por derecho propio; no puede conceptualizar el cumplimiento como cognición organizacional; no puede procesar la transformación computacional de la gobernanza; y no puede dar cuenta de la desagregación del sujeto portador de derechos dentro de las arquitecturas empresariales que pretende reformar. Lo más crítico es que no declara lo que está haciendo — emplear los derechos humanos como dispositivo oblicuo mediante el cual los principios fundacionales de la gobernanza corporativa — el propósito corporativo, el modelo estándar, la relación entre la corporación y el Estado, y la personalidad jurídica corporativa misma — están siendo transformados sin la confrontación que una declaración abierta provocaría.

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Dicho esto, subrayo que ni "apoyo" ni "cuestiono" ningún tipo de manifestación de variación alguna de lo que los colectivos humanos denominarán "gobernanza corporativa", su sistema operativo fundacional, sus obligaciones, responsabilidades y la jaula cognitiva dentro de la cual todo ello tendrá sentido para sus creadores. Por otra parte, me siento incómodo ante las antiguas tentaciones del velamiento y de dar por sentado lo que pudieran ser cuestiones altamente contenciosas de primeros principios. Esa ha sido una tentación que algunos podrían encontrar irresistible. Es entonces importante exponer lo que la tentación, o más inquietante aún, la creencia en la certeza y la "facticidad", pudiera ocultar detrás de una certidumbre (de la significación e identificación de principios privilegiados a partir de los cuales se construye una realidad totalizante como si fuera ordenada por lo Divino) que produce excelentes documentos políticos y los argumentos que los sostienen, pero poco más — salvo la evangelización de las comunidades de partes interesadas cuya aceptación de una fe en esas construcciones es un elemento necesario para su naturalización dentro de las comunidades humanas. A tales fines he preparado un breve ensayo crítico, "La transformación sub silentio de la gobernanza corporativa: Análisis crítico del Informe del Grupo de Trabajo sobre la cuestión de los derechos humanos y las empresas transnacionales y otras empresas (A/81/180, 14 de julio de 2026)", en el cual aplico mi propia obra previa y marcos analíticos, fundamentados en el análisis del discurso, la semiótica y la fenomenología, al proyecto político-normativo del Grupo de Trabajo de las Naciones Unidas tal como se manifiesta en su Informe de 2026 (A/81/180). He aquí un resumen de lo que intento:

El Grupo de Trabajo de las Naciones Unidas sobre Empresas y Derechos Humanos publicó su Informe sobre Gobernanza Corporativa, Empresas y Derechos Humanos (A/81/180) en julio de 2026. El Informe examina cómo los Principios Rectores de las Naciones Unidas sobre las Empresas y los Derechos Humanos (los Principios Rectores, o PR) deben aplicarse a la gobernanza de las corporaciones — es decir, a los deberes de las juntas directivas y los altos ejecutivos. Se trata, en apariencia, de una empresa directa: cartografía las prácticas de gobernanza corporativa a través de las jurisdicciones, identifica brechas entre la práctica existente y las expectativas de los Principios Rectores, y formula recomendaciones a Estados y empresas. Sus doce recomendaciones a los Estados y trece a las empresas abordan asuntos que van desde la clarificación de los deberes de los directores hasta la integración de los derechos humanos en la remuneración ejecutiva. Es, en estos respectos, una contribución cuidadosa y bien documentada al campo de empresas y derechos humanos. Este ensayo argumenta, sin embargo, que el Informe está emprendiendo algo más ambicioso de lo que su tono mesurado sugiere. Bajo su superficie descriptiva, el Informe se encuentra comprometido en un proyecto de transformación de las categorías fundacionales de la gobernanza corporativa mediante el despliegue de normas de derechos humanos. Esta transformación procede silenciosamente — sub silentio — sin reconocer abiertamente la magnitud de los cambios que contempla. El ensayo no sugiere que esta transformación sea necesariamente errónea, pero sí sugiere que plantea cuestiones importantes sobre transparencia, legitimidad y rendición de cuentas democrática que los formuladores de políticas deberían considerar con detenimiento.

Lo que el Informe propone: El Informe examina los sistemas de gobernanza corporativa a lo largo de múltiples jurisdicciones, desde aquellos organizados en torno a la primacía del accionista (donde los deberes de los directores se deben a los accionistas) pasando por modelos intermedios como el "valor accionarial iluminado" del Reino Unido (donde los directores deben tener en cuenta los intereses de las partes interesadas en el curso de la promoción del beneficio accionarial), hasta modelos híbridos de partes interesadas (India, Brasil, Ghana) donde los directores deben obligaciones a un espectro más amplio de intereses, y finalmente hasta regímenes de debida diligencia obligatoria en materia de derechos humanos (Francia, Alemania, la Unión Europea). El Informe constata que los arreglos de gobernanza existentes son inadecuados: muy pocas empresas tienen políticas significativas de derechos humanos integradas en sus operaciones; la debida diligencia en materia de derechos humanos se encuentra fragmentada entre las funciones corporativas; solo el siete por ciento de las empresas encuestadas proporcionan una cadena clara de responsabilidad en derechos humanos que llegue hasta la junta directiva; y la mayoría de las juntas carecen de experiencia en derechos humanos. Sobre la base de estas constataciones, el Informe recomienda que los Estados clarifiquen que los deberes de los directores incluyen las consideraciones de derechos humanos; promulguen legislación obligatoria de debida diligencia en materia de derechos humanos; introduzcan sanciones personales para los directores que no supervisen el desempeño en derechos humanos; y habiliten a los no accionistas para presentar reclamaciones contra los directores. Recomienda a las empresas que integren los derechos humanos en la supervisión de la junta, establezcan líneas de reporte dedicadas, vinculen la remuneración ejecutiva al desempeño en derechos humanos e incorporen mecanismos de reclamación en todas sus operaciones.

La transformación más profunda en juego: El ensayo identifica cuatro respectos en los que las recomendaciones del Informe, tomadas en conjunto, transformarían la arquitectura existente de la gobernanza corporativa en lugar de meramente complementarla. Primero, el propósito corporativo. La recomendación del Informe de que el propósito corporativo "no opere únicamente sobre la primacía del accionista" es, en la práctica, una recomendación de que los Estados legislen contra la comprensión dominante del propósito corporativo en muchas jurisdicciones principales. El Informe trata la primacía del accionista no como un modelo legítimo de gobernanza entre varios, sino como una base deficiente a ser corregida. Esta es una decisión política de considerable magnitud, y los formuladores de políticas deben entenderla como tal. Segundo, la gobernanza de la junta. El Informe prescribe una arquitectura detallada de cómo las juntas deben gobernar los derechos humanos: comités dedicados, líneas de reporte específicas, experiencia requerida y sanciones personales por incumplimiento. La brecha entre la obligación mínima de supervisión reconocida en el derecho existente (ejemplificada por el estándar Caremark en Estados Unidos, que requiere solo que las juntas no omitan por completo la implementación de sistemas de reporte) y la arquitectura comprehensiva que el Informe vislumbra es sustancial. Los formuladores de políticas deben apreciar que esto va más allá de mejorar los estándares de gobernanza existentes hacia la prescripción de un modelo particular de organización de la gobernanza. Tercero, la relación corporación-Estado. Al recomendar que los Estados ordenen la debida diligencia corporativa en materia de derechos humanos y que las corporaciones incorporen normas internacionales de derechos humanos en su gobernanza, el Informe vislumbra el empleo de la corporación como instrumento para dar efecto doméstico a estándares internacionales de derechos humanos — incluso en jurisdicciones cuyos legislativos no han adoptado dichos estándares. La corporación se convierte en conducto mediante el cual las normas internacionales fluyen hacia los ordenamientos jurídicos internos. Este es un desarrollo significativo en la relación entre corporaciones, Estados y derecho internacional que merece deliberación política explícita. Cuarto, la personalidad corporativa. El Informe resuelve implícitamente debates teóricos de larga data sobre la naturaleza de la personalidad jurídica corporativa a favor de lo que podría denominarse una "personalidad de derechos humanos" — una en la cual el propósito, los deberes, los arreglos de gobernanza y la rendición de cuentas de la corporación se definen todos por referencia a obligaciones de derechos humanos. Los formuladores de políticas deben reconocer que esta resolución tiene consecuencias para cómo las corporaciones son entendidas, reguladas y llamadas a rendir cuentas a través de los sistemas jurídicos.

El método del Informe y sus implicaciones: El ensayo también examina el método interpretativo mediante el cual el Informe construye su argumentación. El Informe procede clasificando los arreglos de gobernanza a lo largo de un espectro desde la primacía del accionista hasta los modelos de partes interesadas, identificando la brecha entre cada arreglo y las expectativas de los Principios Rectores, y recomendando que los Estados cierren esa brecha. Este método — clasificar, medir la brecha, recomendar el cierre — es poderoso pero no neutral. Presupone que los Principios Rectores proporcionan la medida correcta de adecuación, y trata las desviaciones de ese estándar como deficiencias a ser corregidas en lugar de como opciones legítimas alternativas de gobernanza. El Informe también traduce las preocupaciones de derechos humanos al lenguaje de la materialidad financiera, lo cual las hace legibles dentro de los marcos de gobernanza existentes pero también las subordina a la lógica financiera — una tensión que el Informe no reconoce plenamente.

Lo que los formuladores de políticas deben considerar: Nada en este análisis implica que los objetivos del Grupo de Trabajo sean erróneos. Existen razones poderosas para creer que las corporaciones deben tener mayor consideración de sus impactos en derechos humanos, que los directores deben ser más atentos a las consecuencias de sus decisiones para los trabajadores y las comunidades, y que los arreglos de gobernanza deben evolucionar para reflejar estas expectativas. La literatura académica apoya ampliamente la proposición de que la arquitectura existente de gobernanza corporativa aborda inadecuadamente las preocupaciones de derechos humanos. Sin embargo, este ensayo sugiere que los formuladores de políticas deben abordar las recomendaciones del Informe con una comprensión clara de lo que implican. El Informe presenta sus recomendaciones como extensiones lógicas de los principios de gobernanza existentes — como la aplicación natural de los Principios Rectores al derecho corporativo. Pero el efecto acumulativo de estas recomendaciones sería transformar, en lugar de extender, las categorías fundacionales de la gobernanza corporativa: el propósito corporativo, la autonomía de la junta, la relación corporación-Estado, y la personalidad corporativa misma. Tal transformación bien pudiera estar justificada, pero debería proceder mediante deliberación transparente en lugar de la extensión incremental de un marco cuyas implicaciones transformativas no se explicitan. Los formuladores de políticas deben considerar también la coherencia de la arquitectura de gobernanza que el Informe vislumbra. Al superponer obligaciones de derechos humanos sobre las estructuras existentes de gobernanza corporativa sin reconstituir dichas estructuras, el Informe corre el riesgo de producir arreglos de gobernanza internamente contradictorios — exigiendo a las juntas que maximicen el valor accionarial mientras simultáneamente priorizan los derechos humanos, sin ofrecer un marco claro para resolver los conflictos entre estos objetivos. Un enfoque más transparente reconocería estas tensiones y propondría un marco coherente para su resolución.

 

El ensayo completo puede consultarse AQUÍ.  

 

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Reflections on Report of the Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises Corporate governance, business and human rights (A/81/180/UNGA, 14 July 2026)

 

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VERSIÓN EN ESPAÑOL AQUÍ

  The report of the Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises Corporate governance, business and human rights at the 81st session of the General Assembly, writes about directors’ duties and the responsibilities of senior executives in large companies. Its  report reflects an elite consensus, at least within the business and human rights community and their supporters in the administrative apparatus of states, and among academics and large segments of the global civil society sector. For that reason alone, it is worthy of being taken seriously, and seriously examined for for it puts forward, what it veils, and what the consequences drawn from assumptions that remain critically unexamined, may produce. 

The Report is a sophisticated document within its own semiotic system — the most advanced expression of the GP framework as applied to corporate governance. But its internal operating system is constrained by its foundational commitment to the state as semiotic first, legality as semiotic second, and the GP framework as semiotic third. It cannot observe the enterprise as a governance system in its own right; it cannot conceptualize compliance as organizational cognition; it cannot process the computational transformation of governance; and it cannot account for the disaggregation of the rights-bearing subject within the enterprise architectures it seeks to reform. Most critically, it does not declare what it is doing — using human rights as the sideways device through which the foundational principles of corporate governance — corporate purpose, the standard model, the corporation-state relationship, and corporate personality itself — are being transformed without the confrontation that an open declaration would provoke.

That said, I underscore that I neither "support" nor "challenge" any sort of manifestation of any variation of what human collectives will name "corporate governance", its foundational operating system, its obligations, responsibilities and the cognitive caged within which all of this will make sense to its makers. On the other hand I am uncomfortable with ancient temptations of veiling and of assuming away what may be highly contentious issue of first principles. That has been a temptation that some might find irresistible. It is then important to expose what temptation, or more troubling the belief in the certainty and "facticity", might hide behind a certainty (of the signification and identification of foregrounded principles from which a totalizing reality is constructed as if ordered by the Divine) that produces excellent political documents and the arguments supporting them, but little else--other than the evangelization of the communities of stakeholders whose acceptance of a faith in those constructions is a necessary element in its naturalization within human communities.

To those ends I have prepared a short critical essay, "The Sub Silentio Transformation of Corporate Governance: A Critical Analysis of the Report of the Working Group on the Issue of Human Rights and Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises (A/81/180, 14 July 2026) in which I appy my own prior work and analytical frameworks, grounded in discourse analysis, semiotics and phenomenology, to the political-normative project of the UN Working Group as manifested in its 2026 Report (A/81/180). Here is a summary of what I am attemptingç

 

The United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights released its Report on Corporate Governance, Business and Human Rights (A/81/180) in July 2026. The Report examines how the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (the Guiding Principles, or GPs) should be applied to the governance of corporations—that is, to the duties of boards of directors and senior executives. This is, on its face, a straightforward undertaking: it maps corporate governance practices across jurisdictions, identifies gaps between existing practice and the expectations of the Guiding Principles, and offers recommendations to states and companies. Its twelve recommendations to states and thirteen to companies address matters ranging from the clarification of directors' duties to the integration of human rights into executive remuneration. It is, in these respects, a careful and well-documented contribution to the business and human rights field.

This essay argues, however, that the Report is doing something more ambitious than its measured tone suggests. Beneath its descriptive surface, the Report is engaged in a project of transforming the foundational categories of corporate governance through the deployment of human rights norms. This transformation proceeds quietly—sub silentio—without openly acknowledging the magnitude of the changes it contemplates. The essay does not suggest that this transformation is necessarily wrong, but it does suggest that it raises important questions about transparency, legitimacy, and democratic accountability that policymakers should consider carefully.

What the Report Proposes: The Report surveys corporate governance systems across many jurisdictions, from those organized around shareholder primacy (where directors' duties run to shareholders) through intermediate models such as the United Kingdom's "enlightened shareholder value" (where directors must have regard to stakeholder interests in the course of promoting shareholder benefit), to hybrid stakeholder models (India, Brazil, Ghana) where directors owe obligations to a broader range of interests, and finally to mandatory human rights due diligence regimes (France, Germany, the European Union). The Report finds that existing governance arrangements are inadequate: too few companies have meaningful human rights policies embedded across their operations; human rights due diligence is fragmented across corporate functions; only seven percent of companies surveyed provide a clear chain of responsibility for human rights reaching the board; and most boards lack human rights expertise.

On the basis of these findings, the Report recommends that states clarify that directors' duties include human rights considerations; enact mandatory human rights due diligence legislation; introduce personal sanctions for directors who fail to oversee human rights performance; and enable non-shareholders to bring claims against directors. It recommends that companies integrate human rights into board oversight, establish dedicated reporting lines, link executive remuneration to human rights performance, and embed grievance mechanisms throughout their operations.

The Deeper Transformation at Stake: The essay identifies four respects in which the Report's recommendations, taken together, would transform the existing architecture of corporate governance rather than merely supplement it.

First, corporate purpose. The Report's recommendation that corporate purpose 'not operate solely on shareholder primacy' is, in practice, a recommendation that states legislate away the dominant understanding of corporate purpose in many major jurisdictions. The Report treats shareholder primacy not as one legitimate governance model among several but as a deficient baseline to be corrected. This is a policy choice of considerable magnitude, and policymakers should understand it as such.

Second, board governance. The Report prescribes a detailed architecture for how boards should govern human rights: dedicated committees, specific reporting lines, required expertise, and personal sanctions for failure. The gap between the minimal oversight obligation recognized in existing law (exemplified by the Caremark standard in the United States, which requires only that boards not entirely fail to establish reporting systems) and the comprehensive architecture the Report envisions is substantial. Policymakers should appreciate that this moves beyond enhancing existing governance standards toward prescribing a particular model of governance organization.

Third, the corporation-state relationship. By recommending that states mandate corporate human rights due diligence and that corporations embed international human rights norms in their governance, the Report envisions using the corporation as an instrument for giving domestic effect to international human rights standards—including in jurisdictions whose legislatures have not adopted those standards. The corporation becomes a conduit through which international norms flow into domestic legal orders. This is a significant development in the relationship between corporations, states, and international law that deserves explicit policy deliberation.

Fourth, corporate personality. The Report implicitly resolves longstanding theoretical debates about the nature of corporate legal personality in favor of what might be called a 'human rights personality'—one in which the corporation's purpose, duties, governance arrangements, and accountability are all defined by reference to human rights obligations. Policymakers should recognize that this resolution has consequences for how corporations are understood, regulated, and held accountable across legal systems.
The Report's Method and Its Implications

The essay also examines the interpretive method through which the Report builds its case. The Report proceeds by classifying governance arrangements along a spectrum from shareholder primacy to stakeholder models, identifying the gap between each arrangement and the expectations of the Guiding Principles, and recommending that states close the gap. This method—classify, measure the gap, recommend closure—is powerful but not neutral. It presupposes that the Guiding Principles provide the correct measure of adequacy, and it treats departures from that standard as deficiencies to be corrected rather than as legitimate alternative governance choices. The Report also translates human rights concerns into the language of financial materiality, which makes them legible within existing governance frameworks but also subordinates them to financial logic—a tension the Report does not fully acknowledge.

What Policymakers Should Consider: None of this analysis implies that the Working Group's objectives are wrong. There are powerful reasons to believe that corporations should take greater account of their human rights impacts, that directors should be more attentive to the consequences of their decisions for workers and communities, and that governance arrangements should evolve to reflect these expectations. The scholarly literature broadly supports the proposition that the existing corporate governance architecture inadequately addresses human rights concerns.

However, this essay suggests that policymakers should approach the Report's recommendations with a clear understanding of what they entail. The Report presents its recommendations as logical extensions of existing governance principles—as the natural application of the Guiding Principles to corporate law. But the cumulative effect of these recommendations would be to transform, rather than extend, the foundational categories of corporate governance: corporate purpose, board autonomy, the corporation-state relationship, and corporate personality itself. Such a transformation may well be warranted, but it should proceed through transparent deliberation rather than through the incremental extension of a framework whose transformative implications are not made explicit.

Policymakers should also consider the coherence of the governance architecture the Report envisions. By layering human rights obligations onto existing corporate governance structures without reconstituting those structures, the Report risks producing governance arrangements that are internally contradictory—requiring boards to maximize shareholder value while simultaneously prioritizing human rights, without providing a clear framework for resolving conflicts between these objectives. A more transparent approach would acknowledge these tensions and propose a coherent framework for their resolution.

The essay follows and may be accessed HERE.

 

The Semiotic Vessels of AI: Dario Amodei's "We Must Pace the Frontier" Read Through the Gerasene Protocol and the Semiotics of Cognition and Conversion

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Dario Amodei has produced yet another oracular text from within the great vessel of the the AI state.  This time he has produced a lamentation in the form of an essay that both recoils from his own horror at what he believes is both his addition and its pathways to destruction (something that is the essence of his own religious experience in 21st century form, that is in the form of psychosis and the therapeutic), and at the same time offers a sort of palliative--not to abandon  the pathology of his addiction but to manage it through regimes of self-care--like a bad "in crowd" movie from the vacuousness that is contemporary self absorbed Hollywood production. So typically late 20th and early 21st century common cultural tropes among the global elites. That essay,  We Must Pace the Frontier (September 2026), offers up a specific a therapeutic formula, a formula in which the patient creates both his own state of psychosis, offers a cure, and volunteers to be their own physician. Again typical for the times and thus can't be helped one might suppose. That formula is elaborated an an operatic formula, perhaps a Mozartian dramma giocoso (like Don Giovanni): Why Pace?; Embedded Evaluators; Pacing Within Democracies; Global Pacing; Bottom Line. It is, in effect a playing out of that marvelous last dinner scene in Don Giovanni before the entrance of the Commendatore and the ewscorted journey to . . .well, a warmer place. 

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This essay was a temptation impossible to resist. And so I have produced my own short reflections on the essay--in itself and deeply embedded within a conversation among powerful captains of the AI industry. I named it "The Semiotic Vessels of AI: Dario Amodei's "We Must Pace the Frontier" Read Through the Gerasene Protocol and the Semiotics of Cognition and Conversion," an essay that situates Amodei's thought within the broader conversations that have been projected onto the global masses and their shepherd, since the start of the year in increasing number and intensity. The essay is not framed around Don Giovanni, but instead it is sourced in the horrors of elites during the decay and collapse of the Tang dynasty in the 9th century, around a poem grounded in the what became the dirge of  "Flowers of the Rear Courtyard" (《玉树后庭花》) composed by Emperor Chen Shubao [ 陳叔寶] the last ruler of the Chen (Southern Dynasties)—a classic image representing the music of a fallen state, now perhaps resonating in a more contemporary setting.

 But is Amodei the Tang era poet, or the writer of "Flowers of the Rear Courtyard" (《玉树后庭花》) or perhaps both.  And the demon is now both in and out of the vessel which was meant to hold him. The introduction follows, the entire essay follows below and may be accessed HERE. Dario

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Introduction: Singing Girls and Semiotic Vessels

《泊秦淮》 杜牧

烟笼寒水月笼沙，夜泊秦淮近酒家。

商女不知亡国恨，隔江犹唱后庭花。

Mist veils the chilly waters; moonlight bathes the sands; Moored for the night on the Qinhuai, near a tavern. Singing girls, heedless of the sorrow of a fallen state, Still sing "Flowers of the Rear Courtyard" from across the stream.

Du Mu's poem is a vessel—not merely of verse but of a civilization's self-diagnosis. The mist on the Qinhuai, the moored boat, the tavern's glow: these are the settings of a world that has already fallen but does not yet know it. The "Flowers of the Rear Courtyard" (《玉树后庭花》) was the song composed by Emperor Chen Shubao of the Southern Dynasties—a classic image representing the music of a fallen state, the sound a dynasty makes when it is already dead and only its entertainments persist. The singing girls do not know the sorrow of a fallen state; they sing the song of decay because it is the only repertoire they have. But Du Mu is not merely the lamenting poet on the opposite shore. That is the conventional reading: the righteous observer mourning a degenerate age. The more unsettling reading places the poet inside the tavern as well—one of the courtiers debauching with Chen Shubao in the bordellos of the Qinhuai, composing his lament from among the very revels he condemns. The lament is sincere; and the poet is complicit. The poem holds both positions without resolving them, because the resolution would require stepping outside the structures that make the poem—and the poet—possible.

That, in a sense, is Dario Amodei. His September 2026 essay, "We Must Pace the Frontier," is at once a lament for the inadequacy of existing containment structures and a product of the very industry that makes those structures inadequate. He writes as both the observer on the far shore and the courtier within the establishment—the CEO of Anthropic, which has "prioritized caution over speed and prudence over profit," yet simultaneously operates within a competitive AI industry that generates the recursive self-improvement he warns against. The pacing proposal is presented as a public good, but it also serves the competitive position of a company that has invested heavily in safety and alignment research. As Grok's parallel analysis noted, the essay simultaneously functions as policy proposal and corporate positioning document. The singing girls sing across the river; and the poet, who hears them, is already inside the tavern.

This essay uses two hermeneutic lenses to read "We Must Pace the Frontier." The first is the Gerasene Protocol developed in "But Can You Drown a Demon—2?"—a five-stage reading (identification, naming, negotiation, authorized transfer, vessel destruction) derived from the Gospel of Mark's story of the possessed man, the demon named Legion, and the herd of pigs. The second is the semiotic architecture of cognition and conversion developed through an engagement with Jan Broekman's Knowledge in Change: The Semiotics of Cognition and Conversion—particularly the concepts of firstness, the flow, conversion, and the semiosphere. Both lenses converge on a single structural observation: that every oracle of the AI vanguard proposes a vessel—a container into which the dangerous intelligence will be transferred—and that every such vessel is ultimately inadequate because the force it contains may already be constituting itself beyond the container's reach.

The vessels are the subject of this essay—their naming, their construction, their structural fragility, and their semiotic character as signs of a sovereignty that may no longer correspond to the thing it claims to signify. The essay concludes by transposing the vessel from its Gerasene form (the pigs, the data centers, the evaluators) into its oldest and most symbolically charged iteration—the ding (鼎), the ancient three-legged bronze tripod cauldron of Chinese dynastic authority—and asks what happens when the ding is spilled.

 

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The fukk essay and Dario Amodei's essay"We Must Pace the Frontier" follow below. 

Discussion Draft Posted: "Power, Purpose, and Control—the Corporation as Platform, Router, and Control/Compliance Space in an Emerging World Order"

 

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I was delighted when my friend and colleague Jorge Esquirol asked me if I was interested in producing a work for an anticipated upcoming issue of Sciences Po Law Review (La Revue des Juristes), which he is directing, the theme of which is “Power, Purpose, and Profit: The Corporation in a Fracturing World Order.” The essays in the issue are meant to :

examine the shifting role of the corporation in light of the significant global upheavals underway. As founder power concentrates, states weaponize corporate law, and society increasingly questions the purpose of large corporations, the foundational architecture of corporate governance is coming undone. This issue assembles scholarship on how power, geopolitics, and corporate purpose are simultaneously reshaping the legal structures that govern who controls corporations, and to what ends. In light of your experience in the interplay between corporate governance, international developments and human rights.

To those ends I have prepared a discussion draft entitled "Power, Purpose, and Control—the Corporation as Platform, Router, and Control/Compliance Space in an Emerging World Order."  This essay reconsiders the conventional narrative of a ‘fracturing world order’ by shifting the unit of analysis from the state to the enterprise. The notion of fracture, I argue, is bound up in the cognitive premises of its observer—a function of the observer’s commitment to the state as the foundational unit of ordering. Observed from the vantage point of the multinational enterprise, what appears as fracture is more accurately described as consolidation: the migration of ordering functions from state-based systems to enterprise-based systems organized around supply, production, and use chains, and mediated through compliance architectures and datafied governance. The corporation is reconceived as simultaneously a platform—a space within which ordering occurs; a router—directing flows of value, compliance expectations, data, and normative obligations across legal orders; and a control/compliance space—the site where governance is operationalized through internalized systems of accountability, risk, and compliance grammars. The emerging order fractures not only the state and its international system but also the individual, who is reconstituted as the sum of desires, behaviors, and data points within platform-enterprise spaces.

 

Generated with Grok

I suggest that the corporation is indeed at the centre of a fracturing world order—but it is not being fractured. It is, rather, the site of re-ordering: the institutional form within which governance functions migrate as the state-based system loses its capacity to monopolize the production of normative order. The three functions developed in this essay—the corporation as platform, as router, and as compliance space—reveal that what appears as crisis from the state's perspective is transformation from the enterprise's. The platform function constitutes the space within which ordering occurs; the routing function directs the flows of normative obligation across polycentric governance landscapes; and the compliance function operationalizes governance through internalized systems of organizational cognition. 

The challenge for legal scholarship—and for La Revue des Juristes as a forum for that scholarship—is to develop analytical frameworks adequate to this reality. Such frameworks must resist the temptation to take the state as the primary unit of ordering, must take seriously the normative capacity of enterprises as governance systems in their own right, and must grapple with the computational transformation that is reconfiguring the modalities of governance from sovereign command to algorithmic processing. They must also reckon with the implications of the emerging order for the individual—the reconstitution of the human subject as data point and factor of production within enterprise-governance architectures that were not designed with the dignity or autonomy of the person as their organizing principle. 

This essay has offered one such framework—necessarily incomplete, necessarily provisional, necessarily open to the objection that it understates the resilience of the state, the agency of the individual, and the capacity of democratic institutions to reassert control over the ordering functions that enterprises have absorbed. These objections deserve engagement, and they will be engaged. But the starting point, I suggest, must be the recognition that the world order is not merely fracturing—it is reconstituting itself around institutional forms and governance modalities that the inherited categories of public international law, corporate law, and constitutional theory are ill-equipped to comprehend. The corporation—as platform, as router, as compliance space—is at the centre of this reconstitution. The task of legal scholarship is to see it clearly.

Comments and engagement  always welcome. The current version of the discussion draft can be accessed via SSRN here: [https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=7372058];  and follows below.

 

Just Released: Academic Network for Latin America and the Caribbean on China (Red ALC-China) (1) Monitor of Chinese Overseas Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean 2026; and (2) Monitor of Chinese Infrastructure Projects in Latin America and the Caribbean 2026

 

 The Academic Network for Latin America and the Caribbean on China (Red ALC-China) just published two brief reports in Spanish, Chinese and English:

1. Monitor of Chinese Overseas Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean 2026. The brief analysis includes a detailed, public and free data set with detailed information for 742 transactions for 2000-2025. The Monitor can can be downloaded at: https://redalc-china.org/monitor/historico-de-ejemplares-del-monitor/

MONITOR OF CHINESE OFDI IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE
CARIBBEAN 2026 Enrique Dussel Peters1
April 15th, 2026
The global landscape from 2025 through March 2026 has been highly volatile, marked by
the military conflict between the United States and Israel and Iran, as well as Russia’s
military invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s conflict in Palestine. The multiple “executive
orders” issued by the Trump administration since January 2025 and various erratic tariff
measures, as well as the Supreme Court’s decision on February 20, 2026, which overturned
most of the tariffs, are also key factors in understanding the rise in oil and gas prices, the
uncertainty surrounding international GDP dynamics and trade and foreign direct investment
flows. The systemic confrontation between the United States and China, beyond possible
meetings between Trump and Xi Jinping in the first half of 2026, remains latent and affects
the new triangular relationships among multiple regions and countries, including in Latin
America and the Caribbean (LAC).
Now in its tenth edition, this issue of the Monitor examines China’s outward foreign direct
investment (OFDI) flows to LAC during the period 2000–2025. To facilitate a concise and
focused analysis, the document is divided into two sections. The first section addresses a set
of international issues relevant to understanding international investment flows, specifically
Chinese OFDI in LAC. The second section examines in detail the performance of Chinese
OFDI in LAC through 2025, based on the extensive database that the Academic Network of
Latin America and Caribbean on China (Red ALC-China) makes available to the public free
of charge.2
The Monitor has been published annually in Chinese, Spanish, and English since 2017 and
aims to provide a concise overview of the main developments and structures of Chinese
OFDI in Latin America and the Caribbean through 2025. Previous issues contain specific
references and discussions that are not repeated in subsequent issues.
We strongly encourage you to make use of the Monitor’s database to gain a deeper
understanding of and improve your analysis of Chinese OFDI in Latin America and the
Caribbean by sector, country, company, and the geographic origin of Chinese companies
within China.

1 This document was prepared with the valuable assistance of Patricio Axayácatl Morales López, Jahaziel Emmanuel Jiménez Román, Asmara Miroslava Ayala Gracia, and Juan Pablo Miranda Villagómez. These efforts were coordinated by Alma Delia Sevilla Ríos. The author is solely responsible for the content.
2 This document and the database containing information on each of the 742 transactions can be found at: https://redalc-china.org/monitor/historico-de-ejemplares-del-monitor/. 

Monitor de la OFDI china en América Latina y el Caribe 2026
Enrique Dussel Peters1
15 de abril, 2026
El entorno global durante 2025 y hasta marzo de 2026 ha oscilado significativamente, como
en el caso del conflicto militar de Estados Unidos e Israel con Irán, así como de la invasión
militar de Rusia a Ucrania y el enfrentamiento de Israel en Palestina. Las múltiples “órdenes
ejecutivas” por parte del gobierno de Trump desde enero de 2025 y diversas erráticas medidas
arancelarias, así como la decisión de la Corte Suprema del 20 de febrero de 2026 que anuló
la mayor parte de los aranceles también son elementos importantes para comprender el
incremento de los precios de petróleo y gas, la incertidumbre en la dinámica del PIB
internacional y en los flujos comerciales y de la inversión extranjera directa. La confrontación
sistémica entre Estados Unidos y China, más allá de posibles encuentros entre Trump y Xi
Jinping en el primer semestre de 2026, sigue latente y afecta las nuevas relaciones
triangulares de múltiples regiones y países, incluyendo América Latina y el Caribe (ALC).
Ya en su décima versión, la contribución del Monitor es examinar la salida de inversión
extranjera directa (u OFDI, por sus siglas en inglés) de China hacia ALC durante 2000-2025.
En aras de permitir un análisis breve y puntual, el documento se divide en dos secciones. La
primera aborda un grupo de temas internacionales relevantes para comprender los flujos
internacionales de inversión y específicamente de la OFDI china en ALC. La segunda parte
examina con detalle el desempeño de la OFDI china en ALC hasta 2025 y con base en el
amplio banco de datos que la Red Académica de América Latina y el Caribe sobre China
(Red ALC-China) pone a disposición pública y gratuita.2
El Monitor se publica anualmente en chino, español e inglés desde 2017 y busca una lectura
ágil sobre los principales acontecimientos y estructuras de la OFDI china en ALC hasta 2025.
En ejemplares anteriores se encontrarán referencias y discusiones específicas que no se
retoman en cada uno de los ejemplares posteriores.2
Invitamos encarecidamente a hacer uso del banco de datos del Monitor para profundizar y
mejorar el análisis de la OFDI china en ALC por sectores, países, empresas y según el origen
geográfico de las empresas chinas en China.

1 El documento contó con la valiosa asistencia de Patricio Axayácatl Morales López, Jahaziel Emmanuel Jiménez Román, Asmara Miroslava Ayala Gracia y Juan Pablo Miranda Villagómez. La coordinación de estos esfuerzos la realizó Alma Delia Sevilla Ríos. El autor es el único responsable de los contenidos.
2 Este documento y el banco de datos con la información para cada una de las 742 transacciones se encuentran en: https://redalc-china.org/monitor/historico-de-ejemplares-del-monitor/.

2026 年中国在拉丁美洲和加勒比地区直接投资报告
Enrique Dussel Peters1
2026 年 4 月 15 日
2025 年至 2026 年 3 月期间，全球局势动荡加剧，尤其以美国和以色列与伊朗之
间的军事冲突、俄罗斯军事入侵乌克兰以及以色列在巴勒斯坦的对抗最为显著。自
2025 年 1 月以来，特朗普政府颁布的多项“行政命令”和各种变化无常的关税措施，
以及最高法院于 2026 年 2 月 20 日推翻大部分关税的裁决，也是理解油气价格上涨、
世界经济变化不确定性以及对贸易和国际直接投资流动影响的重要因素。即便习近
平主席和特朗普总统可能在 2026 年上半年举行会晤，中美之间的系统性对抗依然悬
而未决，并影响着包括拉丁美洲和加勒比（拉美和加勒比）在内的多个地区和国家
间的新型三角关系。
本报告已是第十次发布，旨在考察 2000 年至 2025 年间中国对拉美和加勒比地区
的直接投资情况。为便于进行简明扼要的分析，报告分为两部分。第一部分探讨了
一系列与理解国际投资流动，特别是中国在拉美和加勒比地区直接投资的重要议题。
第二部分则基于拉美和加勒比地区中国学术网（Red ALC-China）提供的公开免费大
型数据库，详细分析了截至 2025 年中国在该地区的直接投资表现2。
报告自 2017 年起每年以中文、西班牙文和英文发布，旨在概述截至 2025 年中国
在拉美和加勒比地区直接投资的主要发展趋势和结构。以往报告中包含的具体参考
资料和讨论内容在后续发布的报告中不再重复。
我们诚挚邀请您使用本报告数据库，这将有助于我们不断改善和深入从行业、
国家、企业以及投资企业地理来源等维度对中国在拉美和加勒比地区直接投资展开
的研究。

1 本报告获得了 Patricio Axayacatl Morales López, Jahaziel Emmanuel Jiménez Román, Asmara Miroslava Ayala Gracia
y Juan Pablo Miranda Villagómez 的宝贵帮助。Alma Delia Sevilla Ríos 负责协调了他们的工作。作者是报告内容唯
一负责人。
2 本报告以及附有 742 笔中国在拉美和加勒比直接投资交易完整信息的数据库可在如下网址查阅：https://redalc-
china.org/monitor/historico-de-ejemplares-del-monitor/。

2. Monitor of Chinese Infrastructure Projects in Latin America and the Caribbean 2026. Brief analysis includes a detailed, public and free data set with detailed information for 327 infrastructure projects during 2005-2025. The Monitor can be downloaded at: https://redalc-china.org/monitor/monitor-de-infraestructura/.

MONITOR OF CHINESE INFRASTRUCTURE IN LATIN
AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN 2026
July 31st, 2026
Enrique Dussel Peters1
Global infrastructure projects have taken on increasing importance, particularly those
involving China in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), due to regional demand, the
significant supply from Chinese companies, and the systemic confrontation between the
United States and China that has been ongoing since at least 2017. Surprisingly, however,
these projects have not received sufficient attention from the public sector, business
organizations, and academia, starting with the lack of a clear definition of infrastructure
projects—unlike foreign direct investment—as well as the lack of statistics and analysis at
the micro, meso, macro, and territorial levels.
The Monitor of Chinese Infrastructure in Latin America and the Caribbean—hereinafter
referred to as the Monitor—contributes to our understanding of the subject and focuses on
China’s infrastructure projects in LAC through 2025. In its seventh annual edition—we
encourage you to consult previous editions for specific aspects that remain relevant today—
the analysis begins with a precise definition of infrastructure projects and focuses on their
characteristics, particularly the year, project cost, jobs created, host country in LAC,
ownership, and geographic origin of the Chinese company that carried out the respective
projects, among other variables. The analysis is based on infrastructure projects compiled by
the Latin American and Caribbean Academic Network on China (LAC-China Network).2
The two sections of the Monitor’s analysis address international aspects relevant to China’s
infrastructure projects in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the second section examines
the main trends for 2005–2025.

MONITOR DE LA INFRAESTRUCTURA CHINA EN AMÉRICA
LATINA Y EL CARIBE 2026
Julio 31, 2026
Enrique Dussel Peters1
Los proyectos de infraestructura a nivel global han cobrado una creciente relevancia y
particularmente los de China en América Latina y el Caribe (ALC), tanto por su demanda en
la región y la importante oferta por parte de empresas chinas, como por la confrontación
sistémica entre Estados Unidos y China, al menos desde 2017. No obstante, estos proyectos
han recibido sorprendentemente poca atención por parte del sector público, los organismos
empresariales y la academia. Entre las principales deficiencias se encuentran la ausencia de
una definición clara de los proyectos de infraestructura y, a diferencia de lo que ocurre con
la inversión extranjera directa, la falta de estadísticas y análisis a nivel micro, meso, macro y
territorial..
El Monitor de la infraestructura China en América Latina y el Caribe —en lo que sigue el
Monitor— contribuye al conocimiento sobre la temática y se concentra en los proyectos de
infraestructura de China en ALC hasta 2025. En su séptima versión anual —invitamos a
revisar las versiones anteriores con aspectos específicos relevantes en la actualidad— el
análisis parte de una definición puntual de los proyectos de infraestructura y se concentra en
sus características, particularmente en el año, monto de los proyectos, empleo generado, país
destino en ALC, propiedad y origen geográfico de la empresa china que ha realizado los
respectivos proyectos, entre otras variables. La base del análisis son los proyectos de
infraestructura recopilados por la Red Académica de América Latina y el Caribe sobre China
(Red ALC-China)2.
Los dos apartados del análisis del Monitor abordan aspectos internacionales relevantes para
los proyectos de infraestructura de China en ALC y, el segundo, sus principales tendencias
durante 2005-2025.

2026 年中国在拉丁美洲和加勒比地区基础设施项目报告
2026 年 7 月 31 日
Enrique Dussel Peters1
基础设施项目在全球范围内的重要性不断提升，尤其是在拉丁美洲和加勒比地
区（拉美和加勒比），这主要归因于区域需求、中国企业的大量投入以及 2017 年以来
中美之间的系统性竞争与对抗。然而，令人惊讶的是这些项目并未得到公共部门、
商业组织和学术界的足够重视。究其原因首先是对基础设施项目缺乏明确的定义
（与外国直接投资不同），此外微观、中观、宏观和地域层面的统计数据和分析仍然
不足。
《中国在拉丁美洲和加勒比地区基础设施报告》（以下简称“报告”）旨在增进
对该领域的了解，并重点关注截至 2025 年中国在拉美和加勒比的基础设施项目。本
报告为第七年度发布（诚邀您查阅往年报告，其中包含在现今仍未重要的多方面具
体内容），今年报告首先对基础设施项目进行精确定义，然后着重分析其特征，特别
是项目年份、项目金额、创造就业、所在国家/地区、中国企业所有权类型和地理来
源等指标。本报告基于拉美与加勒比中国学术网（Red ALC-China）汇编的基础设施
项目数据2。
本报告通过两部分来探讨 2005-2025 年间中国在拉美和加勒比地区基础设施项目
的相关国际因素及其主要发展趋势。

"El Encuentro entre la Gobernanza Empresarial y los Principios Rectores de la ONU sobre las Empresas y los Derechos Humanos": Discusro Pronunciado en la Universidad ICESI, Cali, Colombia, 19 March 2026

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ENGLISH LANGUAGE VERSION HERE

A continuación, se presenta el texto ampliado de la intervención realizada en la Universidad ICESI (Cali, Colombia) el 19 de marzo de 2026. Agradezco a los organizadores del evento y, especialmente, a los estudiantes del Semillero, cuyo trabajo es verdaderamente extraordinario y con quienes espero colaborar más estrechamente en el futuro.

Más abajo se incluye el resumen (en inglés y español) y se puede acceder al texto completo.

Foto crédito acquí

Resumen (Español): Este ensayo examina la intersección crítica entre la gobernanza empresarial y los Principios Rectores de las Naciones Unidas sobre las Empresas y los Derechos Humanos (PRNU), derivado de una conferencia dictada por Larry Catá Backer en 2026. Superando los marcos tradicionales de cumplimiento técnico, la obra problematiza este campo al interrogar la naturaleza fundamental, la autoridad y el propósito socioeconómico de la empresa moderna. Se analiza la fricción constante entre tres paradigmas doctrinales en disputa: la teoría de la concesión, la teoría de la propiedad y la teoría de la entidad real. Asimismo, el texto explora cómo la globalización económica ha erosionado el poder estatal territorial, creando un panorama de gobernanza policéntrico donde el derecho público y el ordenamiento contractual privado se interpenetran. Al trazar la evolución histórica desde las fallidas Normas de la ONU de 2003 hasta el "pragmatismo de principios" de John Ruggie en los PRNU de 2011, el ensayo detalla cómo este marco alinea distintos registros institucionales. Descompone sistemáticamente la arquitectura asimétrica de los tres pilares: el deber vinculante del Estado de proteger, la responsabilidad de exhortación de las empresas de respetar y el acceso al remedio. Se otorga especial énfasis a la debida diligencia en derechos humanos como un eje operativo que despliega múltiples funciones institucionales. Finalmente, la obra concluye que la interpenetración de estos pilares desestabiliza las doctrinas clásicas del derecho corporativo —como los deberes fiduciarios y la elección de la ley aplicable—. De este modo, demuestra que la gobernanza empresarial y la regulación transnacional de los derechos humanos ya no pueden evaluarse de forma aislada, ya que se acoplan estructuralmente para rediseñar la legitimidad del orden económico global.

Abstract (English): This essay examines the critical intersection between corporate governance and the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP), derived from a 2026 lecture by Larry Catá Backer. Moving beyond traditional, checklist-oriented compliance frameworks, the work problematizes the field by interrogating the fundamental nature, authority, and socio-economic purpose of the modern enterprise. It analyzes the ongoing friction among three competing doctrinal paradigms: concession theory, property theory, and real-entity theory. The text explores how economic globalization has eroded territorial state power, creating a polycentric governance landscape where public law and private contractual ordering interpenetrate. Tracing the historical shift from the failed, state-centric 2003 UN Draft Norms to John Ruggie’s "principled pragmatism" in the 2011 UNGP, the essay details how the framework aligns distinct institutional registers. It systematically unpacks the asymmetric architecture of the three pillars: the binding State duty to protect, the expectation-based corporate responsibility to respect, and access to remedy. Special emphasis is placed on human rights due diligence as an operational hinge performing multi-layered institutional functions. Ultimately, the work concludes that the interpenetration of these pillars destabilizes classical corporate law doctrines—such as fiduciary duties and choice of law. It demonstrates that corporate governance and transnational human rights regulation can no longer be evaluated in isolation, as they structurally couple to reshape the legitimacy of the global economic order.

Quizás se pueda llegar al núcleo de la discusión de esta manera:  Un tratamiento convencional del derecho de las empresas y los derechos humanos procedería de forma taxonómica: identificaría el instrumento (los Principios Rectores), expondría su contenido (tres pilares) y catalogaría su implementación (planes de acción nacionales, legislación sobre debida diligencia, regímenes de divulgación). Tal tratamiento sería preciso pero incompleto, porque daría por sentado precisamente lo que el método problematizador insiste en interrogar —a saber, si la "gobernanza empresarial" y los "derechos humanos" nombran dos dominios regulatorios separados y estables que simplemente pueden ponerse en contacto, o si ambos son en sí mismos constructos inestables cuyo encuentro produce algo genuinamente nuevo.

La investigación se despliega a lo largo de seis ejes interconectados: el carácter fundamental de las empresas y de los objetivos económicos; el efecto de la globalización y de los regímenes comerciales sobre las fronteras de la autoridad estatal; las "paletas" (palettes) resultantes de ordenamiento normativo público y privado; el problema general de la corporación y de la gobernanza empresarial como tal; la manifestación específica de ese problema en el dominio de los derechos humanos corporativos, incluidos sus antecedentes históricos y su cristalización en los Principios Rectores de las Naciones Unidas sobre las Empresas y los Derechos Humanos (PRNU); y, finalmente, las conexiones, alineaciones y transformaciones que vinculan la doctrina del gobierno corporativo con el marco de los derechos humanos. Lo que sigue aborda cada uno de estos puntos a su vez, antes de considerar lo que el encuentro entre ambos campos —la gobernanza empresarial y las empresas y los derechos humanos— sugiere sobre la condición actual de la regulación económica transnacional.

Una nota sobre la traducción

Nota sobre la traducción: To accurately integrate the academic context and refine the nuances between the English common-law corporate tradition and the Spanish legal framework, the translation has been revised to strengthen key transliterations and functional equivalents. Key Transliteration & Terminology Enhancements: (1) Corporate Governance: Maintained as Gobernanza Empresarial in headings, but translated as Gobierno Corporativo within the text when discussing strict corporate law doctrine, matching standard Spanish academic usage. (2) Creature of the State / Real-entity theory: Rendered as criatura del Estado and teoría de la entidad real, which are the recognized academic equivalents in comparative corporate law. (3) Remedy: Transliterated contextually. While "remedio" is used in the official Spanish translation of the UNGPs, the academic text demands reparación or vías de recurso depending on whether it refers to the outcome or the mechanism. Both are utilized to capture the full semantic weight. (4) Due Diligence: Maintained as debida diligencia, the stabilized term in international law.

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"Encountering Corporate Governance and the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights": Enhanced Remarks Delivered at Universidad ICESI, Cali, Colombia, 19 March 2026

 

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 Version en Español

The following is the extended  text of remarks delivered at Universidad ICESI, Cali, Colombia, 19 March 2026. I am grateful to the organizers of the event and especially to the students in the Semillero (Incubator) whose work is truly amazing, and with whom I hope to work more closely in the future.

The abstract follows (English and Spanish) and the full text may be accessed below.

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Abstract (English): These extended remarks examine the critical intersection between corporate governance and the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP), derived from a 2026 lecture by Larry Catá Backer. Moving beyond traditional, checklist-oriented compliance frameworks, the work problematizes the field by interrogating the fundamental nature, authority, and socio-economic purpose of the modern enterprise. It analyzes the ongoing friction among three competing doctrinal paradigms: concession theory, property theory, and real-entity theory. The text explores how economic globalization has eroded territorial state power, creating a polycentric governance landscape where public law and private contractual ordering interpenetrate. Tracing the historical shift from the failed, state-centric 2003 UN Draft Norms to John Ruggie’s "principled pragmatism" in the 2011 UNGP, the essay details how the framework aligns distinct institutional registers. It systematically unpacks the asymmetric architecture of the three pillars: the binding State duty to protect, the expectation-based corporate responsibility to respect, and access to remedy. Special emphasis is placed on human rights due diligence as an operational hinge performing multi-layered institutional functions. Ultimately, the remarks suggest that the interpenetration of these pillars destabilizes classical corporate law doctrines—such as fiduciary duties and choice of law. It demonstrates that corporate governance and transnational human rights regulation can no longer be evaluated in isolation, as they structurally couple to reshape the legitimacy of the global economic order.


Resumen (Español): Este ampliado discurso examina la intersección crítica entre la gobernanza empresarial y los Principios Rectores de las Naciones Unidas sobre las Empresas y los Derechos Humanos (PRNU), derivado de una conferencia dictada por Larry Catá Backer en 2026. Superando los marcos tradicionales de cumplimiento técnico, la obra problematiza este campo al interrogar la naturaleza fundamental, la autoridad y el propósito socioeconómico de la empresa moderna. Se analiza la fricción constante entre tres paradigmas doctrinales en disputa: la teoría de la concesión, la teoría de la propiedad y la teoría de la entidad real. Asimismo, el texto explora cómo la globalización económica ha erosionado el poder estatal territorial, creando un panorama de gobernanza policéntrico donde el derecho público y el ordenamiento contractual privado se interpenetran. Al trazar la evolución histórica desde las fallidas Normas de la ONU de 2003 hasta el "pragmatismo de principios" de John Ruggie en los PRNU de 2011, el ensayo detalla cómo este marco alinea distintos registros institucionales. Descompone sistemáticamente la arquitectura asimétrica de los tres pilares: el deber vinculante del Estado de proteger, la responsabilidad de exhortación de las empresas de respetar y el acceso al remedio. Se otorga especial énfasis a la debida diligencia en derechos humanos como un eje operativo que despliega múltiples funciones institucionales. Finalmente, la obra concluye que la interpenetración de estos pilares desestabiliza las doctrinas clásicas del derecho corporativo —como los deberes fiduciarios y la elección de la ley aplicable—. De este modo, demuestra que la gobernanza empresarial y la regulación transnacional de los derechos humanos ya no pueden evaluarse de forma aislada, ya que se acoplan estructuralmente para rediseñar la legitimidad del orden económico global.

Perhaps one can get to the heart of the discussion this way: A conventional treatment of business and human rights law would proceed taxonomically: identify the instrument (the Guiding Principles), state its content (three pillars), and catalogue its implementation (national action plans, due diligence legislation, disclosure regimes). Such a treatment would be accurate but incomplete, because it would take for granted precisely what the problematizing method insists on interrogating—namely, whether “corporate governance” and “human rights” name two separate and stable regulatory domains that can simply be brought into contact, or whether both are themselves unstable constructs whose meeting produces something genuinely new.

The inquiry unfolds along six interlocking axes: the fundamental character of enterprises and of economic objectives; the effect of globalization and trade regimes on the borders of state authority; the resulting “palettes” of public and private normative ordering; the general problem of the corporation and of corporate governance as such; the specific manifestation of that problem in the domain of corporate human rights, including its historical antecedents and its crystallization in the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP); and, finally, the connections, alignments, and transformations that link corporate governance doctrine to the human rights framework.What follows takes up each of these in turn, before considering what the encounter between the two fields—corporate governance and business and human rights—suggests about the present condition of transnational economic regulation.

The full text may be downloaded HERE.

Note on the Spanish translation: To accurately integrate the academic context and refine the nuances between the English common-law corporate tradition and the Spanish legal framework, the translation has been revised to strengthen key transliterations and functional equivalents. Key Transliteration & Terminology Enhancements: (1) Corporate Governance: Maintained as Gobernanza Empresarial in headings, but translated as Gobierno Corporativo within the text when discussing strict corporate law doctrine, matching standard Spanish academic usage. (2) Creature of the State / Real-entity theory: Rendered as criatura del Estado and teoría de la entidad real, which are the recognized academic equivalents in comparative corporate law. (3) Remedy: Transliterated contextually. While "remedio" is used in the official Spanish translation of the UNGPs, the academic text demands reparación or vías de recurso depending on whether it refers to the outcome or the mechanism. Both are utilized to capture the full semantic weight. (4) Due Diligence: Maintained as debida diligencia, the stabilized term in international law.

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