Corporate Social Responsibility

Although corporate social responsibility ("CSR") initiatives have been pursued by a range of companies as voluntary measures for decades, recent developments have rendered the exercise by companies of designing and implementing environmental, social and governance mechanisms inherently legal in nature. This course will explore the legal issues that companies have been forced to confront, increasingly with the support of specialized legal counsel, in pursuing CSR or sustainability objectives, including those arising in the context of supply chain human rights due diligence (e.g., minerals sourcing and human trafficking), impact investment and the adoption of alternative corporate forms, voluntary standards and mandatory requirements regarding non-financial disclosure and reporting (e.g., SASB, sustainability listing standards, possible amendments to Regulation S-K, and the EU non-financial reporting rules), director fiduciary duties and the changing expectations of investors, shareholder proposals and stakeholder engagement, and the rise of corporate social activism by companies and their officers, among others. Elements used in grading: Class Participation, Written Assignments, Final Paper.