ESG Principles in International Business and Sustainable Contracts

The concept of sustainable development has captured the world. It is altering society, generating new social patterns, reorganizing business and management models, testifying to the ultimate connectedness of the world and, as a result, encourages rethinking the legal superstructure, adapting supernova normative arrays to the current legal taxonomy, which is not always possible with taking into account the positivist approach to law. ESG principles have today become a kind of model for sustainable business development, due to which the goals of companies’ involvement in solving environmental, social and management problems are achieved. They have not only a vector effect, but also a regulatory, reputational; they have also an increasing impact on international business in a variety of industries. In addition, they are updating relatively new rating mechanisms that form the basis of investment, financial, credit, trade, corporate, management and other policies of companies. At the same time, ESG principles are segmented, fragmented and, as a rule, objectified externally in the form of norms of nonstate, often industry regulation. Without legally binding force, ESG principles are quite comparable with law in terms of the degree of impact on public relations and in terms of the resulting legal and economic consequences. Cross-border contracting practices are also changing, leading to the incorporation of “sustainability” clauses into contracts, as well as the emergence of the concept of a sustainable contract. The pre-contractual stage becomes more complicated, it requires human due diligence procedures, the formation and assessment of supply chains, the development of strategies for the disclosure of non-financial information, the study of legal risks taking into account the global law enforcement practice, as well as the establishment of methods and a jurisdictional forum for the resolution of disputes. International Commercial Arbitration claims to be attractive in resolving ESG disputes. These and other issues, taking into account their relevance, are studied in this paper.

Post-UN Institutions Specific to the Order of Civilizations

Starting to explore the futurist concept of the “global order of civilizations” and making some notes about the new actors (“the civilizations”) playing as global gladiators and new geopolitical actors on the 21st century stage, we shall point out the institutional framework of such order, that, in our opinion, should include specific bodies and organisms such as: The High Representative of the Global Eco-Regions to the Global Council of Peace; the Global Mediator of Civilizations; the Global Council of Peace; a High Representative for Nature’s Rights; a Global Council of Protection, Preservation and Regeneration of Terrestrial Ecosystems; High Representatives of the rights of planet Earth (within the context of a global law of environment offering specifically to the planet Earth its own rights and a specific juridical global personality, as a higher level of the today Green Deal, as an exit from the traditional patrimonial–absolutist conception about nature as object, as “unlimited patrimony” submitted to all kind of abusive actions and politics of the mankind, governments, or corporations). Global environmental law will become more and more compulsory for transnational actors, in order to ensure the concrete protection of ecosystems, a protection that we are noticing not to be as effective as the state one.

Advanced Introduction to Comparative Legal Methods

Drawing on historical, normative, theoretical, and economic methodologies, Pier Giuseppe Monateri offers a fresh critical analysis of various dimensions of comparative law methods. Comprehensive and engaging with a multidisciplinary approach, this Advanced Introduction spans the fields of comparative legal studies, law and finance and global law.

Clinical Legal Education and Human Rights Values: A Universal Pro Forma for Law Clinics

This article explores the theoretical foundations for a social justice–centric global law clinic movement. Our starting position is that law clinics, a type of clinical legal education (CLE), are in a unique position to engage in, and potentially promote, social justice issues outside their immediate communities and jurisdictions. To achieve this aim, it is necessary for law clinics to adopt a universal pro forma underpinned by the key concepts of CLE, namely social justice education and promoting access to justice through law reform. We argue that the main features of CLE are aligned with those of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) on issues such as human dignity and social justice. Incorporating UDHR values into CLE serves three purposes. First, it acts as a universal pro forma, which facilitates communication between clinics across jurisdictions, irrespective of their cultural or legal background. Second, it allows clinics to identify sources of global injustices and to share resources and expertise to collectively address injustices. Third, the theoretical approach advocated in this article argues that clinics have a Kantian moral right to engage in transnational law reform.

A WIN-WIN SOLUTION FOR MUTUAL BENEFIT AND PROSPERITY

Dear Reader, Nobel Laureate Prof. Amartya Sen cites a story of three children, Anne, Bob and Carla. Prof. Sen quotes Aristotle and Bentham too while narrating the story, I heard from Prof (Dr.) James Nedumpara at his recent live lecture at Jindal Global Law School. This story fascinated me and it goes like this. Clara worked hard to successfully build a flute. Anne knows to play the flute, but Clara does not know to play the flute. Bob, the third child, does NOT have any toys to play with, so he wants the flute. All the children are claimants to the flute. Prof. Sen and many legal luminaries quote many legal theories such as Libertarianism, Utilitarianism, Egalitarian and also try to distinguish between “Niti and Nyaya” to resolve this problem, as to who merits (deserts and deserve) to keep the flute.

CRIMINAL LEGISLATION OF UKRAINE AS AN IMPORTANT REGULATORY PHENOMENON OF CRIMINAL-LEGAL ACTIVITY

The current ideology of criminal law as an element of the system of criminal law reality has been analysed. The differentiation of terms «criminal law validity (reality)» and «criminal validity (reality)» has been conducted. It has been stated that appropriate level of scientific background ensuring the development, adoption and application of criminal legislation is the most important prerequisite for high quality and efficiency of criminal law regulation and protection. The systematic relationships between criminal legislation of Ukraine and other branches of legislaion that specify its provision have been analysed. It has been substantiated that systematic and harmonius improvement of the norms of criminal legislation and norms of related branches that «are accomponied with them» is necessary for the efficient functioning of criminal law reality. It has been stated that regulation of criminal law in its systematic sense should be of the highest quality. The criminal law mechanism for ensuring the quality of legal regulation in any sphere of social life is complex and multifacated. It covers, in particular, public and private institutes and organizations, legal framework of their activities and international cooperation. Each of these elements must be endowed with sufficient qualitative instrumental features. Additionally, it is important to ensure a harmonious systematic connection between them. With regard to criminal law, it can be argued about the quality of its form and content, bearing in mind the philosophical axiom that form is always essential, and the essence is always formed. It has been found that traditionally since the ancestor of the science of codification Jeremy Bentham, codes were considered the highest form of expression to improve the quality and content of legislation in the doctrine of law. They are precisely recognized as such in the continental legal system, as they most fully ensure, in particular, such qualities of the legislation as systematization, clarity, accessibility, the absence of gaps and contradictions. It has been investigated, that unfortunately, the Ukrainian legislative practice goes mainly through the creation of diverse, often contradictory and separate laws which make numerous changes to the current criminal law. Legal act is considered to be excellent when it does not require specification in by-laws, or if a need to specify the norms is minimal or enforced. The global law-marking practice has recognized that since ancient times such legal act is a code of laws, if it is developed and adopted on the scientific basis of codification techniques.