"Corporate Social Responsibility" and "Legal Origins"

"The Legal Origins of Corporate Social Responsibility", by Leonardo Becchetti, Rocco Ciciretti, and Pierluigi Conzo, relates the voluminous literature on the "Legal Origins Theory", which mostly focuses on the connections between finance law and economic development, and "corporate social responsibility" (CSR), a prominent buzzword in current environmental law and policy. The abstract:

from economyage.com

The legal origin literature documents that civil and common law traditions have different impact on rules and economic outcomes. We contribute to this literature by investigating the relationship between corporate social responsibility and legal origins. Consistently with the main differences in historical and legal backgrounds and net of industry specific effects, the common law origin has a significant and positive impact on the Corporate Governance and Community Involvement domains, while the French legal tradition of civil law on the Human Resources domain. We also document that the lack of observable differences in the environmental domain can be explained by firms' progressive convergence to industry sustainability standards.

Morag-Levine on the historical roots of the precautionary principle

I had the privilege of commenting earlier this week on a paper by Noga Morag-Levine on the historical roots of the differing approaches taken to the precautionary principle. Focusing on the “permissive” version of the principle, according to which regulators should be allowed to regulate suspected risks even in the absence of proof of harm, she argues that the transatlantic debate of the last few years regarding the propriety (or legality) of the principle has deep roots in debates going back hundreds of years.

Frehner reviews Daintith, "Finders Keepers?"

The latest Environmental History has a review by Brian Frehner of Terence Daintith's Finders Keepers?: How the Law of Capture Shaped the World Oil Industry (RFF/Earthscan, 2010). Frehner writes:

Much has been written about the history of oil and gas law within the United States, but few authors have provided an accessible entreé into the subject. Daintith has undertaken a daunting task by revisiting the subject and attempting to expand on it by approaching the topic in a comparative manner.