Cosmopolitanism in Practice? The Case of the Norwegian Government Pension Fund

Abstract

One area where calls for reform of global regimes and of the actors within them are very vocal and visible concerns the responsibilities of corporations and investors. The normative constraints on the investments of the Norwegian Government Pension Fund may be explained and assessed by such trends and standards. The following reflections first comment on globalisation and moral cosmopolitanism. Section 2 lays out a ‘standard’ case for why corporations may legitimately restrict their objectives to value creation for their owners – within domestic settings – and why this argument fails to hold under circumstances of globalisation. Section 3 presents some of the most salient normative objectives and standards for investors, concerning shareholder activism and exclusion. Sections 4 and 5 present the Norwegian Pension Fund Global and how its Council on Ethics brings certain normative standards to bear. Section 6 considers potential conflicts and benefits of coordination between two activities: those of shareholder activism and exclusion, arguing for certain ways to address the conflicts from a cosmopolitan perspective. Section 7 concludes by drawing some lessons from this case.