Legal Mechanization of Corporate Social Responsibility Through Alien Tort Statute Litigation: A Response to Professor Branson with Some Supplemental Thoughts

Abstract

This Response argues that as Alein Tort Statute jurisprudence “matures” or becomes more sophisticated, the legitimate limits of the law regress. The further expansion within the corporate defendant pool – attempting to pin liability on parent, great grandparent corporations and up to the top – raises the stakes and complexity of ATS litigation. The corporate social responsibility discussion raises three principal issues about how a moral corporation lives its life: how a corporation chooses its self-interest versus the interests of others, when and how it should help others if control decisions may harm the shareholder owners, and how far the corporation must affirmatively go to help right the perceived wrongs in the world in which they operate. Although these questions could be posed simply as ones of policy or morality, with the injection of the ATS into the discussion they become questions that must be answered by examining the dictates and limits of law. Every expansion of liability, whether it is in terms of the persons or entities who may be sued or the nature of claims recognized as creating legal obligations, should be viewed cautiously.

Keywords: Alien Tort, Corporations, Kiobel, International Law, Subsidiaries, Veil Piercing, Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, Human Rights

JEL Classification: F00, F01, F00, F01, F02, F10, G30, H10, H32, K10, K33, K40, K41, L20, O00, P10