Christopher M. Bruner, the Stembler Family Distinguished Professor in Business Law here at the University of Georgia School of Law, presented his book, The Corporation as Technology: Re-Calibrating Corporate Governance for a Sustainable Future (Oxford University Press 2022) earlier this month in London, United Kingdom.
The seminar was hosted by the University of Notre Dame’s London Global Gateway and co-sponsored by the University College London Centre for Commercial Law.
Christopher M. Bruner, the Stembler Family Distinguished Professor in Business Law here at the University of Georgia School of Law, recently took part in a seminar session on corporate sustainability disclosures, presented online for students at the University of Minnesota Law School and University College Dublin Sutherland School of Law.
“Sustainability Disclosure Around the World” was the title of the presentation by Bruner, a scholar of corporate law, corporate governance, comparative law, and sustainability, whose most recent book is The Corporation as Technology: Re-Calibrating Corporate Governance for a Sustainable Future (OUP 2022) (prior posts).
Joining Bruner in presenting the seminar were Professor Brett McDonnell, Dorsey & Whitney Chair in Law at Minnesota Law, and Xiaoyu Gu, who is a Managing Director at AB CarVal, a global alternative investment management firm. Professor Claire Hill, who is James L. Krusemark Chair in Law at Minnesota Law, and Professor Joe McGrath, of University College Dublin Law, convened the event.
Christopher M. Bruner, the Stembler Family Distinguished Professor in Business Law here at the University of Georgia School of Law, has been appointed a Research Member of the prestigious European Corporate Governance Institute, known as ECGI.
As described on its website, the Brussels-based “ECGI is an international scientific non-profit association providing a forum for debate and dialogue between academics, legislators and practitioners, focusing on major corporate governance issues.” Its “global network of practitioner, academic and institutional members” is “appointed on the basis of their significant contribution to the field of corporate governance study.” EGCI’s press release on today’s new appointments is available here.
In addition to fostering research collaboration among its members, ECGI disseminates scholarship, hosts international events, and spearheads initiatives, including its ongoing project on “Responsible Capitalism.”
Bruner (prior posts) is a scholar of corporate law, corporate governance, comparative law, and sustainability. His books include The Corporation as Technology: Re-Calibrating Corporate Governance for a Sustainable Future (OUP 2022), The Cambridge Handbook of Corporate Law, Corporate Governance and Sustainability (co-edited with Beate Sjåfjell) (CUP 2019), Re-Imagining Offshore Finance: Market-Dominant Small Jurisdictions in a Globalizing Financial World (OUP 2016), and Corporate Governance in the Common-Law World: The Political Foundations of Shareholder Power (CUP 2013).
Christopher M. Bruner, the Stembler Family Distinguished Professor in Business Law here at the University of Georgia School of Law, presented on “Corporate Risk, Shareholder Liability, and the Role of Intermediaries” as part of a “Corporate Law, Corporate Governance and Sustainability” panel at a conference last month at the University of Oslo Faculty of Law in Norway.
Bruner also moderated another session and participated in an invitation-only research-collaboration workshop.
Entitled “The Risks of Unsustainability Conference,” the University of Oslo gathering brought together “academics from various fields to discuss how a research-based concept of risks of sustainability can be placed at the centre of law and policy, in business and finance, to contribute to ensuring a safe and just space for all living beings on this planet,” with the goal of “generat[ing] holistic inclusion of the risks of unsustainability at a systemic level, and unlock[ing] the potential of new modalities of sustainability law.”
In addition to Norway and the United States, the conference welcomed scholars based in Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
Christopher M. Bruner, the Stembler Family Distinguished Professor in Business Law here at the University of Georgia School of Law, served as a commentator Thursday at a book launch hosted by the Faculty of Law at the University of Oslo, Norway.
The book, Innovating Business for Sustainability: Regulatory Approaches in the Anthropocene (Elgar 2022) is an essay collection edited by Professors Beate Sjåfjell, University of Oslo, Carol Liao, University of British Columbia in Canada, and Aikaterini Argyrou, Nyenrode Business University in the Netherlands. All three co-editors took part in the online launch event. Professor Cecilia Bailliet of the University of Oslo served as commentator along with Georgia Law Professor Bruner.
In a published item regarding the book – which is the second publication under the auspices of Daughters of Themis: International Network of Female Business Scholars – Bruner has written:
“There is growing recognition that the interconnected global crises we face require urgent reforms to the conduct of business, yet the nature and extent of such reforms remain hotly debated. This essential volume compellingly argues that we must embed the concept of sustainability at the very heart of corporate law, and the authors’ expert analyses challenge us to rethink prevailing regulatory approaches in light of the gendered nature of existing structures and the complexity of social-ecological systems.”
Christopher M. Bruner, the Stembler Family Distinguished Professor in Business Law here at the University of Georgia School of Law, presented Friday at “The Corporate Form and Society,” a seminar at the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa, Italy.
Bruner presented his new book, The Corporation as Technology: Re-Calibrating Corporate Governance for a Sustainable Future (Oxford University Press 2022).
Also speaking at the panel, which was chaired by Sant’Anna Professor Giuseppe Martinico, were legal scholars from the University of Parma in Italy and Washington and Lee University, University of Pennsylvania, New York University, and Louisiana State University in the United States.
Christopher M. Bruner, the Stembler Family Distinguished Professor in Business Law here at the University of Georgia School of Law, presented Wednesday at “Corporate Law, Society, and the Planet,” a seminar at Università Bocconi in Milan, Italy.
Bruner’s presentation was entitled “The Corporation as Technology: Re-Calibrating Corporate Governance for a Sustainable Future,” and drew upon his new book of the same name. Also speaking were Bocconi Law Professor Giovanni Strampelli, as well as legal scholars from New York University and Washington and Lee University.
A new book entitled The Corporation as Technology: Re-Calibrating Corporate Governance for a Sustainable Future and written by Christopher M. Bruner, the Stembler Family Distinguished Professor in Business Law here at the University of Georgia School of Law, has been released today by Oxford University Press.
Here’s OUP’s description:
“Recent decades have witnessed environmental, social, and economic upheaval, with major corporations contributing to a host of interconnected crises. The Corporation as Technology examines the dynamics of the corporate form and corporate law that incentivize harmful excesses and presents an alternative vision to render corporate activities more sustainable.
“The corporate form is commonly described as a set of fixed characteristics that strongly prioritize shareholders’ interests. This book subverts this widely held belief, suggesting that such rigid depictions reinforce harmful corporate pathologies, including excessive risk-taking and lack of regard for environmental and social impacts. Instead, corporations are presented as a dynamic legal technology that policymakers can re-calibrate over time in response to changing landscapes.
“This book explores the theoretical and practical ramifications of this alternative vision, focusing on how the corporate form can help secure an environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable future.”
Drawing upon corporate governance structures and reform efforts from around the world, Professor Bruner studies these issues in three parts, entitled, respectively, “The Dynamism of the Corporation,” “Re-Conceptualizing the Corporation,” and “Harnessing the Corporation.” Further details here.
Scholars at the University of Georgia School of Law are taking part on panels during this week’s 116th Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law, the theme of which is “Privatizing International Governance.”
The annual meeting opened yesterday and runs through Saturday – in person, in Washington, D.C., for the first time in a couple years. Indeed, the meeting is hybrid, with registration available for online viewers – including, at ASIL Academic Partners like Georgia Law, free registration for students.
Georgia Law representation includes these panels:
10:30-11:30 a.m., Friday, April 8: Privatizing International Governance
Melissa J. “MJ” Durkee, who is Associate Dean for International Programs, Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center, and Allen Post Professor (pictured above left), will serve as moderator for a panel entitled “Privatizing International Governance,” part of the meeting’s International Law Beyond the State track.
Here’s the panel description:
“The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights both encourage engaging business groups as partners in developing global governance agendas. Such multi-stakeholder and public-private partnerships are increasingly common and seen as essential to the future of international business regulation. The participation of affected groups brings expertise, promotes engagement and buy-in, and secures funding. At the same time, critics have raised alarms about industry capture of the UN climate change bodies, global financial governance institutions, and international public health standard-setting efforts. In response, institutions like the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization are implementing reforms to prevent mission-distortion by business groups. At a time when multilateral cooperation is at an ebb, public-private partnerships are indispensable, and yet the danger of undue influence is real. The time is therefore ripe to consider how to productively engage business groups in global governance. This roundtable of experts will discuss cutting-edge efforts by international organizations to capture the benefits of business participation while reducing the harms. The roundtable will consider access rules, existing and proposed reforms, and how past experience may offer lessons for future challenges.”
Panelists will be: Patricia Kameri-Mbote, United Nations Environment Programme; Nora Mardirossian, Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment; Suzy Nikièma, Lead, Sustainable Investment, International Institute for Sustainable Development; and Nancy Thevenin, United States Council for International Business.
3-4:30 p.m., Friday, April 8: Fourth Annual International Law Review Editors-in-Chief Roundtable
Harlan G. Cohen, who is Gabriel M. Wilner/UGA Foundation Professor in International Law and Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center at Georgia Law (above right), will serve as a panelist in the “Fourth Annual International Law Review Editors-in-Chief Roundtable,” an online session that is part of the meeting’s Professional and Academic Development track.
Here’s the panel description:
“In recognition of the important role that student-edited international law journals play in the dissemination of international legal scholarship, the Society hosts an annual International Law Review Editor Roundtable. This Roundtable will discuss key issues around legal scholarship, including: selecting great topics that might be more relevant to the various audiences of law journals, including scholars and practitioners; how international law journals can be more effective at soliciting and/or selecting relevant pieces of international legal scholarship; and how to work with authors (who may have different cultural perspectives) to successfully publish their pieces. The Roundtable will be facilitated by international law experts as well as sitting editors-in-chief of law student-run international law journals. The Society invites current students and recent graduates interested in the process of scholarship and publication in international law to connect with their peers and distinguished scholars and practitioners.”
Joining Professor Cohen on the panel will be Colorado Law Professor James Anaya and Vanderbilt Law Professor Ingrid Wuerth.
Additionally:
11 a.m.-1 p.m. Friday, April 8: Eighth Annual Justice Stephen Breyer Lecture on International Law, Brookings Institution
Diane Marie Amann, who is Regents’ Professor of International Law, Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law, and Faculty Co-Director of our Center (above second from left), will serve on a panel to be held after Philippe Sands, a barrister and University College London law professor now visiting at Harvard Law, delivers a lecture entitled “Crimes Against Humanity, Genocide, and Ecocide: of Rights, Responsibilities, and International Order.” Other panelists will be Georgetown Law Professor Jane Stromseth and George Washington University Law Professor Sean D. Murphy. Online registration is still available here for this event.
Georgia Law professors also are taking part in ASIL leadership meetings during the annual conference, which is supported by four volunteer Georgia Law students: 1Ls John Carter and Jack Schlafly and LLMs Veronika Grubenko and Agustina Figueroa Imfeld.
A research handbook co-edited by Christopher M. Bruner, the Stembler Family Distinguished Professor in Business Law here at the University of Georgia School of Law, has garnered significant acclaim in a review just published in a leading academic journal.
Subject of the review is The Cambridge Handbook of Corporate Law, Corporate Governance and Sustainability (Cambridge University Press 2019), which Professor Bruner co-edited with Professor Beate Sjåfjell of the University of Oslo in Norway. As previously posted, this 700-plus-page book includes 50 chapters, by 60 contributors from around the world. In addition to joining his co-editor in drafting the introduction and conclusion, Bruner also wrote chapter 36, “Leaders or Laggards? Corporate Sustainability in Hong Kong and Singapore.”
The new review of this work, written by Fordham Law Professor Martin Gelter, appears in an official, peer-reviewed journal of the American Sociological Association, at 51 Contemporary Sociology 154 (2022). Gelter’s review calls the Bruner-Sjåfjell Handbook a “monumental collection,” and concludes:
“The book is an invaluable resource for research on sustainability issues and on comparative corporate law in general. Any serious library covering these fields should have this book, and any researcher will have to address multiple ideas in the volume.”
exchange of notes 