States, Firms, and Their Legal Fictions: Attributing Identity and Responsibility to Artificial Entities

Author: Melissa J. Durkee
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781009334679
Published In: March 2024
Format: Hardback
Jurisdiction: U.K. ? Disclaimer:
Countri(es) stated herein are used as reference only

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Description
Contents

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This volume offers a new point of entry into questions about how the law conceives of states and firms. Because states and firms are fictitious constructs rather than products of evolutionary biology, the law dictates which acts should be attributed to each entity, and by which actors. Those legal decisions construct firms and states by attributing identity and consequences to them. As the volume shows, these legal decisions are often products of path dependence or conceptual metaphors like “personhood” that have expanded beyond their original uses. Focusing on attribution, the volume considers an array of questions about artificial entities that are usually divided into doctrinal siloes. These include questions about attribution of international legal responsibility to states and state-owned entities, transnational attribution of liabilities to firms, and attribution of identity rights to corporations. Durkee highlights the artificiality of doctrines that construct firms and states, and therefore their susceptibility to change.

Shows how legal concepts like attribution and entity personhood can affect the rights and responsibilities of two kinds of artificial entities - firms and states - and so facilitates comparison and contrast between these entities.
Explores legal fictions that affect the responsibilities of states and firms across doctrinal divides
Offers a cross-disciplinary exploration of concepts like attribution and the entity personhood of firms and states

Introduction

1. States, Firms, and their Legal Fictions - Melissa J. Durkee

Part I. International Attribution:

2. Attribution in International Law: Challenges and Evolution - Kristen E. Boon

3. Between States and Firms: Attribution and the Construction of the Shareholder State - Mikko Rajavuori

4. Contractors and Hybrid Warfare: A Pluralist Approach to Reforming the Law of State Responsibility - Laura Dickinson

5. The Enduring Charter: Corporations, States, and International Law - Doreen Lustig

Part II. Transnational Attribution:

6. Corporate Structures and the Attribution Dilemma in Multinational Enterprises - James T. Gathii and Olabisi D. Akinkugbe

7. Transnational Blame Attribution: The Limits of Using Reputational Sanctions to Punish Corporate Misconduct - Kishanthi Parella

8. Mind the Agency Gap in Corporate Social Responsibility - Dalia Palombo

Part III. Domestic Attribution: