Description
Book SynopsisIn The Supranatural Corporation, Laura Westra lays bare corporate actions both domestic and international - under the guise of legal 'personhood' - and shows how corporations flaunt laws and act as controlling powers beyond the constraints imposed on legal state citizens. Corporations are now embedded within domestic legal regimes and insinuate themselves to subvert the very systems designed to restrain corporate power and protect the public.
Table of ContentsForeword by Richard Westra Introduction 1. The Corporation: From the “Original Sin” (Santa Clara) to Right of Personhood (Roe) Introduction The Corporation: Natural versus Juridical Personhood Fetal Personhood and the Law Before and After Roe Some Further Arguments Regarding the Right to Life of the Preborn in Common Law Arguments about the Possible Introduction of “Human Life Amendments” into Law Personhood and its Problems Personhood as “Categorization” not “Recognition”: the Source of Corporate Power 2. The Corporation: Controlling Public Health and Other Basic Rights Individuals and the Corporation Corporate Activities and their “Toxic Trespass” Pulp and Paper Mills and Mercury Poisoning: The Canadian Case of Grassy Narrows and White Dog Central and South American Cases: Attacks on Health Through Mining and Extractive Industries A Brief Overview of the Constitutional Protection Available for the Environment in Colombia and Ecuador Corporate Agribusiness and Health Corporate Crime as Human/Animal Oppression From Big Tobacco to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control The Corporation and Its Internal Stakeholders Concluding Thoughts 3. The Corporation and the State: A Question of Power Introduction “Corporate Clout” in a Lawless World Existing International Laws for State and Corporate Responsibility The Corporation as a “Quasi-State” The State and the Corporation: Responsibility and Complicity Jus Cogens and the Effects of Corporate Activities The Impunity of Corporate Criminals and the State Corporate Impunity and “Imperial Plunder” National Lawyers Guild International Committee Corporate/State Crime and Third States Obligations Corporate Power and Cosmopolitan Democracy Corporations, the State and the “Two Constitutions” 4. The Corporation as Criminal Introduction: External Stakeholders Norms to Restrain Corporate Harms: “Gaps” or Structural Violence? Corporate Forward March: From Weedkillers and “Super Insects” Pesticides Beyond Agriculture: Corporate Power and Chemical Warfare Colonization, Genocide and War Crimes: Germany and the Herero People Complicity and Responsibility from Nuremberg to Vietnam Corporation as Criminal: Internal Stakeholders Corporation as Criminal: Asbestos Imposes Direct and Indirect Harm Concluding Thoughts 5. The Corporation as a Supranational Power: The European Union Introduction Europe’s Revolt and Resistance to Corporate Power: Theory and the Law Revolt and Resistance to Corporate Power in Practice Criminal Precedents and Corporate Disaster in Hungary Bayer’s Criminal Precedents: Unacknowledged Dangers Corporate Power and the “European Dream” in Conflict The Roots of “Europe, Inc.” in the American Dream Corporate Responsibility under ATCA Corporate Criminality, Fitness to Rule and “Tempering Globalization” Corporations are Unfit to Hold Their Present Ruling Position 6. The Corporation as a Supranational Power Introduction Climate Change and Corporate Culpability Climate Change and State Corporate Relations “Nature’s Trust” Against the Power of Drones and Caterpillars Corporate Complicity in Attacks Against the Right to Life Legal Versus Natural Persons The New Supranationalism and Corporate Attacks on Civil and Political Rights: The EU and the US on Conflicting Trajectories Europe’s Protection of Human Rights Against Multinationals The United States and the Reach and Limits of Supranational Power Supranational Corporate Power and Post-National Citizenship From Local to Global Citizenship Against Corporate Power: The Occupy Movement Concluding Thoughts Appendix I: List of Cases Appendix II: List of Documents References Index
