European Economic and Social Constitutionalism after the Treaty of Lisbon

European studies frequently regard the economic and social dimensions of EU integration as diametrically opposed, maintaining that this state of affairs is beyond change. This edited collection challenges this perceived wisdom, focusing on the post-Lisbon constitutional landscape. Taking the multi-layered polity that is Europe today as its central organising theme, it examines how the social and the economic might be reconciled under the Union's different forms of governance. The collection has a clear structure, opening with a theoretical appraisal of its theme, before considering three specific policy fields: migration policy and civic integration, company law and corporate social responsibility and the role of third sector providers in public healthcare. It concludes with three case studies in these fields, illustrating how the argument can be practically applied. Insightful and topical, with a unique interdisciplinary perspective, this is an important contribution to European Union law after the Lisbon Treaty

Corporate ownership and control in Victorian Britain

Using ownership and control data for 890 firm‐years, this article examines the concentration of capital and voting rights in British companies in the second half of the nineteenth century. We find that both capital and voting rights were diffuse by modern‐day standards. However, this does not necessarily mean that there was a modern‐style separation of ownership from control in Victorian Britain. One major implication of our findings is that diffuse ownership was present in the UK much earlier than previously thought, and given that it occurred in an era with weak shareholder protection law, it somewhat undermines the influential law and finance hypothesis. We also find that diffuse ownership is correlated with large boards, a London head office, non‐linear voting rights, and shares traded on multiple markets.

Global Production, CSR and Human Rights: The Courts of Public Opinion and the Social License to Operate

This paper takes at its starting point the responsibility placed upon corporations by the United Nations’ Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework as elaborated upon by the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights to respect human rights. The overt pragmatism and knowledge of the complex business relationships that are embedded in global production led John Ruggie, the author of the Framework, to adopt a structure for the relationship between human rights and business that built on the existing practices of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). His intention was that these practices should be developed to embrace respect for human rights by exhorting corporations to move from “the era of declaratory CSR” to showing a demonstrable policy commitment to respect for human rights. The prime motivation for corporations to do this was, according to Ruggie, because the responsibility to respect was one that would be guarded and judged by the “courts of public opinion” as part of the social expectations imposed upon corporations or to put it another way as a condition of a corporation’s social license to operate.
This article sets out the background context to the Framework and examines the structures that it puts forward. In its third and final section the article looks at how the Framework requires a corporation’s social license to be assembled and how and by whom that social license will be judged. The success or failure of the Framework in persuading corporations to respect human rights is tied to whether “the courts of public opinion” can use their “naming and shaming power” effectively.

Class Responsibility Assignment (CRA) for Use Case Specification to Sequence Diagrams (UC2SD)

Identifying responsibility for classes in object oriented software design phase is a crucial task. This paper proposes an approach for producing high quality and robust behavioural diagrams (e.g. Sequence Diagrams) through Class Responsibility Assignment (CRA). GRASP or General Responsibility Assignment Software Pattern (or Principle) was used to direct the CRA process when deriving behavioural diagrams. A set of tools to support CRA was developed to provide designers and developers with a cognitive toolkit that can be used when analysing and designing object-oriented software. The tool developed is called Use Case Specification to Sequence Diagrams (UC2SD). UC2SD uses a new approach for developing Unified Modelling Language (UML) software designs from Natural Language, making use of a meta-domain oriented ontology, well established software design principles and established Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools. UC2SD generates a well-formed UML sequence diagrams as output.

Promoting Community Renewable Energy in a Corporate Energy World

Small-scale, decentralized and community-owned renewable energy is widely acknowledged to be a desirable feature of low carbon futures, but faces a range of challenges in the context of conventional, centralized energy systems. This paper draws on transition frameworks to investigate why the UK has been an inhospitable context for community-owned renewables and assesses whether anything fundamental is changing in this regard. We give particular attention to whether political devolution, the creation of elected governments for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, has affected the trajectory of community renewables. Our analysis notes that devolution has increased political attention to community renewables, including new policy targets and support schemes. However, these initiatives are arguably less important than the persistence of key features of socio-technical regimes: market support systems for renewable energy and land-use planning arrangements that systemically favour major projects and large corporations, and keep community renewables to the margins. There is scope for rolling out hybrid pathways to community renewables, via joint ownership or through community benefit funds, but this still positions community energy as an adjunct to energy pathways dominated by large, corporate generation facilities

Managerial failure in mid-Victorian Britain?: Corporate expansion during a promotion boom

This article examines the mid-1840s expansion of the British railway network, which was associated with a large deterioration in shareholder value. Using a counterfactual approach and new data on railway competition, we argue that the expansion of the railway companies, and their subsequent decline in financial performance, was not due to managerial failure. Rather, the promotion of new routes by established railways and mergers with other companies was part of a managerial strategy to maintain incumbent positions, and may have been preferable to not expanding whilst their competitors did.

“Local politics and global corporate crime in Irish crime fiction : Alan Glynn's Winterland trilogy",

Beyond Attribution: Responsibility of Armed Non-State Actors for Reparations in Northern Ireland, Colombia and Uganda

This chapter explores the responsibility of armed non-state actors for reparations to victims. Traditionally international law has focused on the responsibility of the state, and more recently the responsibility of convicted individuals before the International Criminal Court, to provide reparations for international crimes. Yet despite the prevalence of internal armed conflict over the past few decades, there responsibility of armed groups for reparations has been neglected in international law. Although there is a tentative emerging basis for armed groups to provide reparations under international law, such developments have not yet crystallized into hard law. However, when considering the more substantive practice of states in Northern Ireland, Colombia and Uganda, a greater effort can be discerned in ensuring that such organizations are responsible for reparations. This paper finds that not only can armed non-state actors be held collectively responsible for reparations, but due to the growing number of internal armed conflict they can play an important role in ensuring the effectiveness of reparations in remedying victims’ harm. Yet, finding armed groups responsible for reparations is no panacea for accountability, due to the nature of armed conflicts, responsibility may not be distinct, but overlapping and joint, and such groups may face difficulties in meeting their obligations, thus requiring a holistic approach and subsidiary role for the state.

Why Are Some Subsidiaries of Multinationals the Source of Novel Practices while Others Are Not? National, Corporate and Functional Influences

It has frequently been argued that multinational companies are moving towards network forms whereby subsidiaries share different practices with the rest of the company. This paper presents large-scale empirical evidence concerning the extent to which subsidiaries input novel practices into the rest of the multinational. We investigate this in the field of human resources through analysis of a unique international data set in four host countries - Canada, Ireland, Spain and the UK - and address the question of how we can explain variation between subsidiaries in terms of whether they initiate the diffusion of practices to other subsidiaries. The data support the argument that multiple, rather than single, factor explanations are required to more effectively understand the factors promoting or retarding the diffusion of human resource practices within multinational companies. It emerges that national, corporate and functional contexts all matter. More specifically, actors at subsidiary level who seek to initiate diffusion appear to be differentially placed according to their national context, their place within corporate structures and the extent to which the human resource function is internationally networked.