Talk:Public International Law/Actors in International Law/Corporations

Review: May 16, 2023
One notable strength of your chapter was its critical examination of the role played by the relationship between states and corporations in shaping international law. You effectively explored the dynamics and complexities of this interaction, shedding light on the challenges and implications that arise from the involvement of corporations in the international legal system.This critical perspective adds depth to the chapter and encourages students to question and analyze the influence of corporations on international law.

Your chapter also acknowledged the significant impact that corporations have on various aspects of contemporary global affairs. However, it is worth mentioning that there could be further elaboration on this topic. Considering your outline, I am sure that you will follow up on this during your next submission.

Some minor things:

- You will also find some comments in your chapter in which I elaborate on something more specifically. To view these comments, just open you chapter page and click on "Edit" in the top-right toolbox.

- Note also that the following parts are still missing: required knowledge, learning objectives, further readings (partly), conclusion

- You could add some links to other chapters of the textbook.

- Note that I have made some linguistic and stylistic improvements to the text

Max Milas (discuss • contribs) 15:11, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

= Review: 27 October 2021 =

Dear Sué!

I'm really looking forward to reading your post on corporations soon. I'm sure it will be wonderful! I am especially looking forward to the part on "Chartered Companies and their Role in the Emergence of International Law" and the role of Grotius / Dutch East India Company. I have three comments about your outline.

1. Starting point: why do we talk about corporations in international law at all? On the one hand, according to the liberal understanding, corporations serve the additional realization of human freedom and are something like the extended arm of humans. On the other hand, from a (post-)constructivist perspective, corporations are, of course, freely and arbitrarily invented entities that exist only because we believe in them. Why did we invent corporations in particular and not rights of nature, for example? I realize, however, that this raises very fundamental questions that perhaps cannot be addressed here. Maybe you can pick up the thoughts anyway.

2. Consideration of rights, not just duties: Your outline so far reads as if you want to treat corporations only as evils or of international law. However, I would also be interested in a short section on the rights of corporations (e.g. human rights protection, access to markets, investment protection, etc.). Here you could also discuss "diplomatic protection" and link it within the book.

3. State-owned enterprises / public-private partnerships: if you have enough space, a short section on state-owned enterprises (especially from the perspective of state responsibility) might be interesting. Again, you could link within the book.

If you would have covered the aspects anyway, just ignore my comments. Of course, the same goes if you disagree or want to focus differently. This is going to be a fantastic post!

--Max Milas (discuss • contribs) 17:26, 27 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Dear Sué,
 * thanks for submitting your planned structure on corporations as international law 's actors.
 * As expressed by Max Milas, I am pretty excited to see what you are going to write on the role of chartered companies in the emergence of international law. Are you planning to address the Dutch, British and French Charterd Companies in turn, or rather trying to address more generally their role in the history of international law as well as in positive international law?
 * As a general comment, I would like to stress that it might be important to a section on the rights of corporations, as suggested by Max Milas, with maybe also some words on the freedom of establishment/or the issue of legal personality of private corporations in international law. They are in my understanding crucial to understand parts of the reasons why it is some hard to raise corporations accountability or legal responsibility under international law. You might be willing to so doing in your current sub-part C., but I am unsure by merely reading your title whether you wanna write about the current situation or to rather focus on the traditional/historical "decolonisation" period? In any case, you could also address some major steps for establishing the protection of corporations' rights under international investment law in that period, in face of the attempts of some newly independent countries to regain control on the exploitation or access to their natural resources. Or perhaps this is then to be done in a new sub-part. Regardless of what your plans about that are, I would like to suggest to maybe write some words within the content of that sub-part to nuance the idea of a "decolonisation" period, as being a finished business simply ending with formal independence from countries. This is of course up to your own understanding of that period and that concept, but that is just an invitation.
 * The challenge is to try to come up with some core notions under positive international law too, without entering into too many details given space limitations. I still think that it could be feasible to add a sub-part between your current point C and D, to address some of those core notions of positive international law regarding corporations' private powers and their legal bases and implications. In my view this could reinforce other critical/analytical parts that you might want to address in other sub-parts.
 * Also, I am wondering on what you would like to exactly focus under your current sub-part D., 1. on business and human rights. This is a very broad area, but in case you might add another sub-part --on the said aspects on HR protection, access to market, investment protection, corporations' legal personality and "freedom of establishment"/movements--before that, it might be helpful to gain some space in your sub-part D. 1. to write about other issues or notions.
 * Finally, I would recommend to add on under your current sub-part D., a sub-part on "digital" corporations, because it is in my view one major global topic relating to the role of corporations under international law.
 * I am pretty much opened to discuss those different points with you in more depth, in case you would maybe like to arrange a talk or call at some point. All my comments are simply suggestions, and time and space constraints might render their impracticable or undesirable, but those are my comments at this stage.
 * Thank you for your work!!! MilTahr (discuss • contribs) 12:56, 31 October 2021 (UTC)