Seminar: Financial Sector Responsibility for Human Rights Conduct of Borrowers
The Department of Business Law and Taxation invite you to a seminar on Financial Sector Responsibility for Human Rights Conduct of Borrowers: Lessons from the Extractives Sector presented by Professor Larry Catá Backer.
Extractive industries have been at center of CSR and environmental responsibilities debates at the national and international level. The sector faces unique social and environmental challenges when operating at home as well as in developing countries. Direct regulation at home has increasingly augmented compliance responsibilities (e.g., reporting and policy duties) under homes state domestic legal orders. Faced with these challenges, a number of global enterprises, including Australian global companies, are also engaging in corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, generally defined as the voluntary activities undertaken by a company to operate in an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable manner. But increasingly indirect regulation has come to play a role in the operations of extractives and their operations. Particularly acute in that respect are indirect compliance regimes through financial institutions, suppliers, and upstream customers. International standards and national expectations have begun to appear as factors affecting the terms and conditions (along with the pricing) of relationships between enterprises and their financing partners.
This presentation will focus on financial institutions and their responsibilities with respect to the human rights responsibilities of their borrowers. It considers two questions. First, to what extent are financial institutions responsible for the human rights breaches of their borrowers? Second, how might these obligations constrain borrowers? These questions involve issues of the secondary responsibility of financial sector enterprises through loan making, pricing, covenants, and due diligence during life of relationship. The responsibilities of enterprises to respect human rights and with respect to environmental and sustainability principles have expanded to institutions that finance enterprise activity. The scope of a financial institution’s obligations are evolving as they increasingly serve as an instrument of privatised international norms.
Guest Speaker:
Larry Catá Backer is the W Richard and Mary Eshelman Faculty Scholar and Professor of Law & International Affairs at the Pennsylvania State University (B.A. Brandeis University; M.P.P. Harvard University Kennedy School of Government; J.D. Columbia University).
His research focuses on governance-related issues of globalisation and the constitutional theories of public and private governance, with an emphasis on institutional frameworks for public-private law governance systems. Recent work centers on issues of corporate social responsibility, mixed regulatory systems and regulatory governance (especially touching on SOEs and SWFs), the emerging problems of polycentricity where multiple systems might be simultaneously applied to a single issue or event, and problems of translation between Western and Marxist Leninist (especially Chinese) constitutional systems.
He teaches courses in corporate law, corporate social responsibility, multinational corporations, transnational law, and international organizations. His publications and other work are available on his personal website, BackerinLaw, or through the Social Science Research Network.
Event Details:
Date: Wednesday 22 November 2017
Time: 1-2pm
Venue: Department of Business Law & Taxation Meeting Room Level 3, Building S, Monash University Caulfield Campus
Event Details
- Date:
- 10 August 2017 at 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm
- Venue:
- Department of Business Law & Taxation Meeting Room, Level 3, Building S, Caulfield
- Cost:
- Free
- Categories:
- General
Description
The Department of Business Law and Taxation invite you to a seminar on Financial Sector Responsibility for Human Rights Conduct of Borrowers: Lessons from the Extractives Sector presented by Professor Larry Catá Backer.
Extractive industries have been at center of CSR and environmental responsibilities debates at the national and international level. The sector faces unique social and environmental challenges when operating at home as well as in developing countries. Direct regulation at home has increasingly augmented compliance responsibilities (e.g., reporting and policy duties) under homes state domestic legal orders. Faced with these challenges, a number of global enterprises, including Australian global companies, are also engaging in corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, generally defined as the voluntary activities undertaken by a company to operate in an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable manner. But increasingly indirect regulation has come to play a role in the operations of extractives and their operations. Particularly acute in that respect are indirect compliance regimes through financial institutions, suppliers, and upstream customers. International standards and national expectations have begun to appear as factors affecting the terms and conditions (along with the pricing) of relationships between enterprises and their financing partners.
This presentation will focus on financial institutions and their responsibilities with respect to the human rights responsibilities of their borrowers. It considers two questions. First, to what extent are financial institutions responsible for the human rights breaches of their borrowers? Second, how might these obligations constrain borrowers? These questions involve issues of the secondary responsibility of financial sector enterprises through loan making, pricing, covenants, and due diligence during life of relationship. The responsibilities of enterprises to respect human rights and with respect to environmental and sustainability principles have expanded to institutions that finance enterprise activity. The scope of a financial institution’s obligations are evolving as they increasingly serve as an instrument of privatised international norms.
Guest Speaker:
Larry Catá Backer is the W Richard and Mary Eshelman Faculty Scholar and Professor of Law & International Affairs at the Pennsylvania State University (B.A. Brandeis University; M.P.P. Harvard University Kennedy School of Government; J.D. Columbia University).
His research focuses on governance-related issues of globalisation and the constitutional theories of public and private governance, with an emphasis on institutional frameworks for public-private law governance systems. Recent work centers on issues of corporate social responsibility, mixed regulatory systems and regulatory governance (especially touching on SOEs and SWFs), the emerging problems of polycentricity where multiple systems might be simultaneously applied to a single issue or event, and problems of translation between Western and Marxist Leninist (especially Chinese) constitutional systems.
He teaches courses in corporate law, corporate social responsibility, multinational corporations, transnational law, and international organizations. His publications and other work are available on his personal website, BackerinLaw, or through the Social Science Research Network.
Event Details:
Date: Wednesday 22 November 2017
Time: 1-2pm
Venue: Department of Business Law & Taxation Meeting Room Level 3, Building S, Monash University Caulfield Campus
Event Contact
- Name
- Lauren.King@monash.edu
- Phone
- Organisation