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
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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