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This chapter addresses the possible consequences of the United States Supreme Court's increasing attention to international and foreign human rights law in its death penalty jurisprudence, particularly with respect to the Eighth Amendment. I question the belief of those commentators who argue that such attention might assist with efforts to abolish the death penalty in the United States, and argue instead that the perceived threat to state sovereignty that the invocation of international and foreign human rights law poses might result in attempts to retain the death penalty as a means of reasserting state autonomy.

This chapter examines and illustrates the judicial treatment of relevant concepts and norms of corporate sustainability and relevant implications for the implementation of the UN Global Compact.

This is a conceptual examination of relevant legislation, cases and concepts used by judges in giving practical content to the concepts of ‘sustainable development’, ‘sustainability’ and ‘corporate sustainability’.

The judiciary has been fashioning applicable policy, resolving and balancing the clash of interests, setting guidelines and parameters for statutory interpretation in elucidating the concept of corporate sustainability. To that extent ‘corporate sustainability law’ is developing, not only in municipal public law where legislation is the key driver, but as ‘soft’ international law.

This is a general survey of trends in judicial reasoning from different countries and legal traditions and is not applicable exclusively to any jurisdiction. The implication is that there is room for detailed study of applicable rules in each jurisdiction.

The chapter offers guidance for strategic implementation of the Global Compact, compliance to emergent obligatory principles, for shaping policy and corporate political management.

This chapter contributes to an understanding of the role and impact of the judiciary in developing corporate sustainability law and congruent principles of the Global Compact.

Utopia, a term first coined by Sir Thomas More in the sixteenth century, referred to a place of unattainable social perfection. But the appeal of a concept that embraces rather than mocks the imagination has broadened its meanings and uses. In the early twentieth century, Anatole France wrote, “Out of generous dreams come beneficial realities. Utopia is the principle of all progress, and the essay into a better future.” In contemporary vernacular, utopia has come to refer not only to imagining perfection but cures for imperfection. By this definition, any struggle for rights could be conceived as utopian to the extent that it represents a desire to make the world a better place for the would-be beneficiaries. The utopianism of rights envisions conditions in which human dignity can be ensured and vulnerability minimized.

Purpose – This chapter examines Talisman Energy's operations in the Sudan, as part of the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC). It seeks to demonstrate that international corporate culture precludes ethical decision-making and practices by placing would-be ethical actors in untenable situations.

Methodology/approach – A case study approach is adopted. It analyses various lawsuits brought against Talisman by the Presbyterian Church of Sudan, who claim that Talisman aided and abetted the government of Sudan in genocide during the various protracted conflicts of a violent civil war.

Findings – By reviewing Talisman's corporate social responsibility reports, we find that locating corporate charters in the hands of nation-states entails an inherent tension that can only be resolved by either implementing an international corporate charter in the case of multinationals, or abandoning the corporate charter altogether

Practical implications – We argue for immediate application of the International Criminal Court in The Hague against corporate enablers of government violence against its peoples.

Originality/value – In the case of Talisman in the Sudan, international corporate culture and lack of support from its operating partners did more than discourage Talisman from implementing ethical practices; it prevented Talisman from acting ethically. In particular, it prevented Talisman from using the economic importance of GNPOC to the government of Sudan to disallow the government from using Talisman's infrastructure or oil revenues in military campaigns against the peoples of Sudan.

Efforts to create an international system for corporate responsibility should now be concentrated not on the drafting of yet more rules and standards, but on the strengthening of existing international institutions. This chapter first outlines the problems with using rules that are generally not enforceable within national courts to make global corporations accountable. It is argued that at least some of these obstacles could be overcome by strengthening already existing international institutions. Four such institutions are examined – the existing regional human rights bodies, the International Criminal Court, the International Labor Organization (ILO), and an expanded International Court of Justice.

In October 2020, Zambia failed to make a $42.5 million interest payment on $1 billion in Eurobonds maturing in 2024, becoming the first African country to default on its debt obligations in the aftermath of COVID-19. Zambia's default highlights the fragmented nature of governance in sovereign debt markets. The Zambian default also underscores the continuing impact of colonial hangover in former colonies in Africa. Fragmented governance and colonial overhang create incentives for both debtors and creditors that contribute to cycles of sovereign debt. These cycles of debt pose a particular hazard to residents within countries that issue such debt. In African contexts, this has led to flows of funds for debt repayment that may significantly jeopardize the well-being of people who are already poor. Zambia's default also reflects the increasing need of African countries to navigate among different external actors, particularly China, which has given loans throughout Africa for varied projects, including infrastructure lending as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. The Zambian default draws attention to the significant amount of Eurobond debt African countries have incurred in recent years and the burdens that such debt may impose. The circumstances of Zambia's default, as well as recent disputes about external debt in Mozambique, reflect continuing issues about transparency and public scrutiny of sovereign debt transactions and the broader societal impact of debt internally within African countries and in relations between African countries and varied external powers.

Social media platforms are increasingly receiving attention as legitimate locations for civil society discourse and social movement mobilization. Initial work by Lovejoy and Saxton suggests NGOs use digital platforms such as Twitter to engage their constituencies through information dissemination, community building, and mobilization to action. Here, we explore the applicability of Lovejoy and Saxton’s communicative functions framework to resistance movement behavior by exploring two examples of digital engagement in political conflict. Through content analysis of tweets using hashtag indicators #BDS and #ICC4Israel collected during the spring of 2015, we affirm Lovejoy and Saxton’s findings that information dissemination is the most prevalent communication function for grassroots and institutionally grounded movements. Further, we find that informational tweets in our sample often provide information about grievances, and therefore propose an expansion of the framework to accommodate tweets that may be more common in resistance movements than in NGO communication. In addition to general findings about the communicative functions framework, the content analysis yielded several findings specific to the resistance movements studied. Notably, we find that #BDS and #ICC4Israel tweets are overwhelmingly nonviolent, and that sentiment is generally favorable across both hashtags, with the exception of tweets focusing on academic boycott, which were more ambiguous.

This chapter looks at the past, present and future of international cannabis control required by the UN drug control conventions in the post-2016 United Nations General Assembly Special Session era with an eye on the next High Level Ministerial Segment (HLMS) at the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs in 2019, and beyond. From a policy analysis perspective, the author meanders through the increasing tendency to legally regulate recreational cannabis markets notwithstanding the obligation enshrined in the UN drug control conventions to limit cannabis exclusively for ‘medical and scientific’ purposes. Taking into account relevant national and international developments, the chapter describes how the growing discomfort with the status of cannabis and the prohibitive and punitive approach stemming from the international drug control regime went through a process from soft to hard defections of the treaty obligations. The case of the Netherlands demonstrates the difficulty faced by reform-minded states in reconciling their wish for a different cannabis control mechanism with their obligations under international law, resulting in an incomplete regulation of its coffee-shop system, where small amounts of cannabis are tolerated for sale, but where the illicit supply to the shops remained unregulated. Subsequent more wide-ranging reforms to regulate cannabis from seed to sale in Uruguay, several US States and – in 2018 – in Canada, are clearly violating the obligations of the UN drug control conventions. Nevertheless, the HLMS will likely leave the elephant in the room untouched. The emerging paradigm shift regarding cannabis shows that a modernisation of the UN drug control regime is long overdue. This chapter discusses some of the options available.