Corporate law reform to save the world

[Music]

yes lawyers

so i’m going to talk about the superhero

we need

now michael stipe from rem tells us that

it’s the end

of the world as we know it but tina

turner

she tells us we don’t need another hero

well if it’s the end of the world as we

know it and you don’t

feel fine about that then maybe we do

need

another hero perhaps even a superhero

look certainly there are things that

aren’t looking too flash at the moment

there’s plastic in the food chain

soon there’ll be more plastic in the

oceans than there is fish

in the oceans we may only have 60 or so

harvests left because of the degradation

of the soil we’ve got obesity leading on

to diabetes leading on to

dementia earth overshoot day

the day when we use up the resources

that the earth

sustainably provides to us is currently

the 29th of july each year

and you may have noticed the climate is

changing

stephen emmett in his book and film

10 billion sums it up this way

humans take so much of the earth’s

resources

they’re growing towards a population of

10 billion

he says we urgently need to do and i

mean

actually do something radical

to avert a global catastrophe

now steven’s from yorkshire where the

sun shines all the time

despite which he doesn’t have a glass

half full approach to this the full

quote continues

but i don’t think we will i think we’re

[ __ ]

well if we want to take a glass

half full and problem solving approach

to it

first of all we’ve got to look more

closely at the problem

i do slightly disagree with professor

emmett

because when you see the impoverished

circumstances of the majority

of the world’s population who don’t take

more resources

than is due to them you see that the

problem is not

the entirety of the world the problem is

the rich part of the world

including out your own so what is it

about this part of the world the rich

part of the world

that is different from the rest and one

key

difference is that we run our societies

through corporations or companies

now they of course have done great

things they accumulate capital which

allow big projects to be done

they have driven the growth in living

standards from which we all benefit

but they also have a important

flaw to note in current times

effectively they’re psychopaths

milton friedman the guru of

neoliberalism

wrote an important article back in 1970

when he said the only social

responsibility of businesses

is to maximize their profits to increase

and maximize profits

flip side of this which has been pointed

out by the

corporate law scholar joel bakken

is that corporations are programmed

to exploit others for profit and they’re

also

programmed to exploit natural resources

and programmed is the important word

we have created companies and we’ve set

the rules for them we’ve programmed them

and what we’ve programmed them to do at

the moment

is to act in the best interests of

shareholders and what that has been

interpreted to mean

is maximize the profits

that go to shareholders and that of

course

means that companies can only do

socially responsible things if they

calculate that that will earn them more

money

in other words we require corporations

to do

rational but psychopathic things

they have to externalize costs

they have to minimize taxes

they have to persuade us to buy stuff

and more stuff and new stuff and

replacement stuff

it’s their job because that’s how we’ve

programmed them

so let’s recap it’s the end of the world

as we know it

and our lives are dominated by hannibal

lecter

so i’m sorry tina turner we do need

another hero and in fact we need a

superhero

but what sort of superhero

the hollywood types that just chase

villains

or do we need somebody more pragmatic

somebody along the lines of monty

python’s

bicycle repairman

i think we need somebody pragmatic

because we need somebody to build on

some seeds of change that are occurring

so companies they are the product of

the legal imagination and the

programming

can change we can change the rules so

for example in the united kingdom now

instead of promoting the best interests

of the company the directors there have

to promote

the success of the company and that is

interpreted to mean

the interests of all its employees

the wider community the environment

that doesn’t necessarily go far enough

but it does demonstrate the point

that we can change the rules

so one thing we should perhaps look at

is whether we say that the core function

of companies

is to make sustainable profits

in the context of the stewardship of the

earth’s resources

point two we can make

laws including human rights laws and

environmental laws directly binding

on companies there are some examples of

this so companies now

in california in the united kingdom

in australia have to abide by modern

slavery legislation which requires them

to

find out whether there is any child

labor or slave labor

in their supply chains and if there is

to do something about it

non-discrimination law

typically that will bind companies as

well

there have been suggestions in the past

that we should make international

treaties

on human rights and environmental law

directly binding on companies

now those international treaties they

give us

a right to a sustainable environment

because without that

there will be no life traditionalists

objected to the idea that those

international norms

should be directly binding on

corporations

but we can revisit that and perhaps we

should

build on the examples so far and make

those duties more widely binding

on corporations because they are so

important

in the situation and point number three

why do we need a superhero for this

because psychopaths do not go

quietly the thing is

that we have created a massive inertia

because we have privileged corporations

in many ways

we give them human rights but we don’t

impose many obligations on them we allow

them

to fund politicians and think tanks

that speak their language we allow them

to muddy the waters both literally

and figuratively that all needs to

change

so what we need is for the activists who

can change

hearts and minds and the politicians

who can get an international consensus

to do something about corporation law

around the world it has to be

coordinated because it’s an

international problem

if we carry on with business unusual

then i’m sorry to say it soon will be

the end

of the world as we know it thank you