Research Handbook on Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance

Edited by Thilo Kuntz, Chair in Private Law, Commercial and Corporate Law and Managing Director, Institute for Corporate Law, Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf, Germany

Contents:

Introduction to Research Handbook on Environmental, Social and Corporate
Governance 1
Thilo Kuntz

PART I DIRECTORS’ DUTIES AND MANAGERIAL DECISION-MAKING
1 Taking stakeholder interests seriously: A practitioner’s view from
Germany on management duties 21
Christoph H. Seibt
2 ESG enhancements to company law: The French ‘PACTE’ law 44
Alain Pietrancosta
3 How ESG is weakening the business judgement rule 64
Thilo Kuntz
4 Human rights, environmental due diligence, and value chain
responsibility: A view from France, Germany, and the European Union 91
Katrin Deckert

PART II INVESTOR AND SHAREHOLDER ACTIVISM
5 Stewardship codes, ESG activism and transnational ordering 112
Tim Bowley and Jennifer G. Hill
6 Climate proposals: ESG shareholder activism sidestepping board authority 132
Sofie Cools
7 ESG and workforce engagement: Experiences in the UK 151
Andrew Johnston and Navajyoti Samanta
8 ESG, the Alien Tort Statute, and private regulation’s legitimacy trap 171
Seth Davis

PART III INVESTMENT AND FUND REGULATION
9 EU ‘rule-based’ ESG duties for investment funds and their managers
under the European ‘Green Deal’ 194
Sebastiaan Niels Hooghiemstra
10 Green bonds: A legal and economic analysis 217
Sergio Gilotta
11 Green public finance: The role of central banks 239
Jörn Axel Kämmerer

PART IV DISCLOSURE REGULATION AND RATINGS
12 The forces that shape mandatory ESG reporting 258
Thorsten Sellhorn and Victor Wagner
13 A green victory in the midst of potential defeat? Concern and optimism
about the impact of the SEC’s climate-related disclosure rule 281
Lisa M. Fairfax
14 ESG ratings—guiding a movement in search for itself 303
Andreas Engert

PART V INTERNATIONAL LAW
15 ESG initiatives in international law 325
Rita Guerreiro Teixeira and Jan Wouters
16 ESG and international criminal liability 344
Cedric Ryngaert and Martine Jaarsma

PART VI REGIONAL DEVELOPMENTS
17 The EU Framework on ESG 362
Erik Lidman
18 The Nordic approach to corporate governance and ESG 381
Jesper Lau Hansen
19 ESG in China: A critical review from a legal perspective 404
Xianchu Zhang
20 ESG in Japan: The case of a mixed legal system 421
Masayuki Tamaruya and Mutsuhiko Yukioka
21 The legal and regulatory impetus towards ESG in India: Developments
and challenges 443
Umakanth Varottil