Online | Group Companies and Climate Change: Re-interpreting Corporate Doctrines

CLP Lecture on 'Group Companies and Climate Change: Re-interpreting Corporate Doctrines in the Global North for Climate Equity in the Global South?'

Speaker: Dr Lisa Benjamin (Lewis & Clark Law School)
Chair: The Rt. Hon. Lord Carnwath of Notthing Hill, CVO (Former Justice of the Supreme Court)

Abstract

The corporate objective is the subject ongoing theoretical debate, recently reignited in the context of climate change by a string of corporate climate litigation cases. These cases have been based primarily, but not exclusively, in courts in the global North. The corporate objective is complicated in corporate groups, where economic benefits accrue to parent companies (often situated in the global North) but legal responsibilities are largely cabined within subsidiary companies (often situated in the global South). This dichotomy has obvious equity implications, which are exacerbated in the extractive industries. These inequities are further highlighted in the context of climate change, where negative climate impacts are felt predominantly in the global South. Legal doctrines such as separate legal personality and piercing the corporate veil have fluctuated over time, and recent cases post-Chandler v Cape Industries illustrate growing tension between corporate law as interpreted in the global North, and climate justice as experienced in the global South.  Climate change forces a reconceptualization of corporate law, including transnational corporate liability. This paper argues that these reconsiderations are not only appropriate, but long overdue.

About the Speaker

Dr. Lisa Benjamin is an Assistant Professor at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland Oregon. Lisa received her B.A. from McGill University, her LL.B. from University College London, her LL.M. from University of London and her PhD from the University of Leicester. In 2018 she was a postdoctoral Global Leaders Fellow at the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University, and 2019 she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University in Canada.

Lisa teaches International Climate Change Law, Energy Law, Environmental Justice and Administrative Law. In 2018 she was a Visiting Professor at Penn State University teaching energy law and business associations. Prior to that, she was an Assistant Professor at the University of The Bahamas from 2008-2018 where she taught courses in environmental, trade, corporate, and intellectual property law. She also co-taught a climate change course for masters’ students at the University of Oxford, and received the Doctoral Inaugural Lecture award for her PhD from the University of Leicester.

Lisa’s research investigates the intersection of corporate, energy and environmental law with a focus on climate change and climate risk. She researches areas involving non-state actors including companies and institutional investors, with a focus on energy companies. Her doctoral studies focused on carbon major companies, corporate and energy law and climate change, and is the basis for her forthcoming monograph with Cambridge University Press Companies and Climate Change: Theory and Law in the United Kingdom, which will be published in May 2021. Her research during her post-doctoral fellowships investigated developing countries and climate change, with an emphasis on energy policy, green industrial policymaking and trade.

Watch the recording of this lecture on the  UCL Laws YouTube channel

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