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The purpose of this paper is to understand the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) communications in business by merging previously unconnected lines of thought in communications and law. Using Walmart as an example, the study shows that CSR communication can legitimize a corporation’s autonomous legal system of regulation and governance over its business practices.

A qualitative case study of all online corporate communications webpages from Walmart was examined. Discourse and qualitative analyses were used to show how language and online communications practices created actional legitimacy for Walmart’s CSR practices.

Using the UN’s Guiding Principles for Business as a framework for analysis, the study demonstrated how CSR communications helps Walmart to establish its own system of CSR norms, structures and remediation processes for its business outside of the state. These communications also sought to legitimize these actions among stakeholders.

This case study looks at one corporation (Walmart) to illustrate a new connection between CSR communication and legitimacy. Future research in communications can extend this line of inquiry by examining how communications can reinforce autonomous legal systems and public perceptions.

Backer’s (2007) autonomous legal system and the concept of actional legitimacy in communications have not yet been studied systematically. This case study demonstrates how CSR communications can legitimize a multinational corporation’s business practices, which, in turn, raises ethical considerations for the ways this communication serves the greater society.

As social movements engage in transnational legal processes, they have articulated innovative rights claims outside the nation-state frame. This chapter analyzes emerging practices of legal mobilization in response to global governance through a case study of the “right to food sovereignty.” The claim of food sovereignty has been mobilized transnationally by small-scale food producers, food-chain workers, and the food insecure to oppose the liberalization of food and agriculture. The author analyzes the formation of this claim in relation to the rise of a “network imaginary” of global governance. By drawing on ethnographic research, the author shows how activists have internalized this imaginary within their claims and practices of legal mobilization. In doing so, the author argues, transnational food sovereignty activists co-constitute global food governance from below. Ultimately, the development of these practices in response to shifting forms of transnational legality reflects the enduring, mutually constitutive relationship between law and social movements on a global scale.

Is the death penalty dying? This autobiographical essay offers observations on the application of capital punishment in three very different legal jurisdictions at three different time periods when – partially by happenstance and partially by design – she was a homicide researcher, a participant and an observer of profound changes in the jurisdiction's application of the death penalty.

The paper provides an empirical analysis of the development of and perspectives on industrial relations (IR) in Germany. The first part deals with forms and degrees of institutionalization, which can be used as measures of the maturity and the potential impact of an academic discipline: IR within universities and research institutes, the professional organization, journals, and textbooks. More recent developments are more in line with those in other continental European states than with Anglo-Saxon countries. The weak, slowly progressing degree of institutionalization leads to the conclusion that IR does not constitute a unitary academic discipline. Nevertheless, research and scholarly interest exist. The second part surveys the structure of scholarly research and disciplinary participation. The German case reveals both common and divergent features compared to other countries. An obvious feature of IR is its disciplinary rather than holistic and interdisciplinary character. Empirical research has been less quantitative, and in more recent times less econometrically oriented than in some other countries. Human resource management's (HRM) institutional as well as personal ties with IR are weak and interdisciplinary debates are rare. Another distinctive feature is the large significance of labor law whose study also follows the strict departmentalization of the university structure in Germany. Empirical research in law is still rare and has definitely no solid position within law schools. On the other hand, industrial sociology has had a substantial impact on IR research for several decades and has covered various parts of IR territory. The third part discusses research topics. For quite some time, trade unions and collective bargaining have been the dominant topic. More recently, the focus of interest has shifted from the meso (sectoral or branch) to the micro (enterprise or shop floor) level. Various forms of codetermination, the institutionalized forms of participation in managerial decision-making, have constituted the other traditional research subject. Throughout the 1990s, the process of German unification constituted a “critical juncture” for IR and was an unexpected new topic. More recently, this kind of “unification research” has come to a natural end. Since the early 1990s, there has been a remarkable increase in scholarly work on IR issues concerning employment regulation and governance within the European Union. Last but not least, some traditionally ignored topics are discussed. Numerous labor market-related issues have been of very limited interest for the core of the IR community. Interest in types of atypical or non-standard employment has remained limited. The same limited attention is true for IR in the expanding non-union sector. Another neglected topic is labor relations in the public sector. The outlook discusses future trajectories of IR research. It is argued that the prospects will be encouraging if younger scholars manage to develop a broader, more integrative definition of the field (e.g., “regulation of all aspects of the employment relationship”).

A functionalist framework is used to synthesize well‐known ideas about societal integration and, conversely, disintegration. If the underlying Darwinian metaphor in functional analysis is retained, and supplemented by dialectical metaphors, then functional theorizing can insightfully address the forces of societal disintegration. The emerging theory revolves around, on the structural side, the dynamics of segmentation, differentiation, interdependence and exchange, structural overlap, structural embeddedness, mobility, segregation, and domination whereas on the cultural side, the theory emphasizes the dynamics inhering in systems of evaluational, regulatory, and legitimating symbols as well as generalized symbolic media.

Recent efforts by Western, developed countries, particularly the United States, to achieve “harmonization” of global intellectual property (IP) laws predominantly along Western lines may fail to serve the best interests of the less‐developed countries (LDCs), the newly‐industrializing countries (NICs), and perhaps the international community generally. Such IP harmonization has been a centerpiece of numerous international conferences in forums such as the GATT negotiations, of various bilateral and multilateral negotiations such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and of unilateral threats of trade sanctions by the United States (Fiorito, 1991).

Purpose – The chapter seeks to contribute to the discourse concerning the United Nations Security Council's role in strengthening a rules-based international system and maintaining international peace and security under the rule of law. Its particular purpose is to examine the Security Council's Al-Qaida and Taliban sanctions regime (1267 regime) from a rule of law and due process perspective.

Methodology – To this end, the chapter reviews the 1267 regime's controversial listing and de-listing procedure and identifies shortcomings in relation to traditional due process guarantees. It then discusses reform options available to the Security Council as far as forms and modalities of an effective review mechanism are concerned.

Findings – The chapter has two main findings. First, it concludes that the ‘individualisation’ of Security Council sanctions in terms of targeting individuals directly has not been accompanied by the creation of a means for the new targets to appeal the measures imposed on them. Second, it finds that a lack of political will has so far prevented comprehensive reform of the 1267 regime but that such reform is becoming increasingly urgent. The chapter suggests that reform initiatives need to address the value, effectiveness and sustainability of the 1267 regime more broadly. The Security Council, in particular, needs to consider what it is prepared to give up to maintain the 1267 regime as an effective UN sanctions regime, or whether it is prepared to give up the 1267 regime to maintain the authority it interprets to have from the UN Charter.

This study aims at investigating the phenomenon of financial crime with specific reference to the organization of major sporting events. In particular, in the light of the existing international regulatory framework and recent cases, the study highlights how the adoption of a “virtuous model” – from the point of view of transparency and legality – fully responds to the needs not only of the sports system itself but, also, and above all, of the entire international community.

The paper combines deductive and inductive approaches in addition to consulting and analyzing the principal official reports on the matter, the state of the art, scholarly studies and some of the most relevant leading cases.

In view of the growing interest of the international community in fighting the phenomenon of sports manipulation, this study highlights some of the critical aspects that have so far characterized the approach of the institutions, focusing the attention on the profile of “sustainability” and “responsibility” understood also from the legal perspective.

Given, on the one hand, the huge economic interests that the organization of major sporting events generate and, on the other hand, the social impact they produce as well, the study offers some insights on the need to adopt a sort of “third way,” a virtuous model that acts as a forerunner and that combines respect for the law with the peculiarity of the sports system, so that the final result can be of benefit to the entire international community.

The objective of this paper is to compare the advocacy role of civil society organizations in the United States and Brazil. We conducted an exploratory case study of three peak organizations that engage in public policy advocacy as part of their strategies. We analyze how they advocate and the role this form of action plays within different democratic contexts that assume public discussion and deliberation, by citizens, about matters relevant to them, such as the formulation, execution, and monitoring of public policy. The study concludes that the policy advocacy role of civil society organizations strengthens internal and external democratic processes by bringing for the deliberation process in the public sphere organizations that represent different groups in society. However, this process also poses some risks and challenges that shall be taken into consideration.