Human Rights Law and Corporate Regulation

Jonathan Barrett is an Associate Professor in the School of Accounting and Commercial Law, Victoria University of Wellington Te Herenga Waka, New Zealand. He teaches company law and taxation and researches the practical application of human rights.

1 Introduction

1.1 Aim

1.2 A neo-concessionist model

1.3 Structure

1.3.1 Human rights and duties, and corporations

1.3.2 Concession to neo-concession

1.3.3 Companies Acts and legislative considerateness

1.3.4 The role of the corporate regulator – regulatory considerateness

1.3.5. Towards regulatory confederation

1.3.6 Corporate regulation and technology

1.4 Concluding comments

2 Human rights and corporations

2.1 Introduction

2.1.1 Humanism

2.1.2 Rights and duties

2.1.3 Universal human rights

2.2 Human rights in law

2.3 Property

2.4 Corporate claims to human rights

2.4.1 Practical problems

2.4.2 Interpretive problems

2.4.3 Learning from the United States

2.4.4 Rule of law

2.5 Concluding comments

3 Concession to neo-concession

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Some theories of the company

3.2.1 Concession

3.2.2 Organic

3.2.3 Contract

3.2.4 Real entity

3.3 The company untheorised

3.4 Neo-concession

3.5 Concluding comments

4 Law and legislative considerateness

4.1 Introduction

4.1.1 Legislative considerateness

4.1.2 Directors’ duties

4.1.3 Piercing the corporate veil

4.2 Legislative considerateness

4.2.1 General principles

4.2.2 Legislative considerateness and SMEs

4.3 Directors’ duties

4.3.2 Shareholders

4.5 General anti-abuse provision

4.6 Concluding comments

5 The role of the corporate regulator

5.1 Introduction

5.1.1 General principles

5.1.2 Key issues

5.2 Institutional competence

5.3 Regulatory considerateness

5.3.1 Competent and cooperative actors

5.3.2 Potentially competent and cooperative actors

5.3.3 Recalcitrant actors

5.4 International issues

5.4.1 Recognition of out-of-jurisdiction registered companies

5.5 Concluding comments

6 Towards regulatory confederation

6.1 Introduction

6.2 Colonial experience and UNDRIP

6.2.1 Australia

6.2.2 Canada

6.2.3 New Zealand

6.3 Indigenous corporations

6.3.1 Australia

6.3.2 Canada

6.3.3 New Zealand

6.4 Towards regulatory confederation

6.5 Concluding comments

7 Corporate regulation and technology

7.1 Introduction

7.2 Regulating cyberutopia

7.2.1 The DAO – a failed CBE

7.2.2 Algorithmic entities

7.3 AI

7.4 Regulating the unregulable

7.5 Concluding comments

8 Conclusion

Bibliography

Index