Academic

This Blog Essay site devotes every February to a series of integrated but short essays on a single theme.  The Ruminations Series in 2009 produced a series of aphoristic (?????????) essays, meant to provoke thought rather than explain it. The hope was that, built up on each other, the series would provide a matrix of thoughts that together might lead the reader in new directions. Ruminations continue to be produced form time to time.  For 2010, this site introduced a new series--Business and Human Rights.  The series took as its starting point the issues and questions raised by John Ruggie, the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) on business and human rights, in a global online forum. 

For 2011, this site introduces a new series of integrated essays--Developing a Coherent Transnational Jurisprudence of Ethical Investing: The Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund Ethics Council Model.  The object of this series to to consider the work of the Ethics Council of the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund.  The thesis of this series is this:  The Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund (NSWF ) investment program is grounded in the application of a set of Ethical Guidelines adopted by the Storting (the Norwegian Legislature) and enforced through an Ethics Council charged with determining whether a company should be excluded from investment by the NSWF.  The work of the Ethics Council has produced the beginnings of a coherent jurisprudence of ethics for corporate investment.  That jurisprudence may contribute significantly both to the development of transnational social norm standards and  affect the way domestic corporate law is understood. This is Part II of the series.

However, the Council does not consider that all forms of economic activity associ-ated with the settlements necessarily constitute unacceptable contributions to breaches of the Fund?s Ethical Guidelines, and that an assessment of the degree to which each company contributes must form the basis for the Councils decisions. Construction activities related to the building of real estate in the settlements, i.e. the physical building of houses in the settlements, is, in the view of the Council, the most significant contribution to the further expansion of West Bank settlements.   (at pg. 8).

"The Ministry refers to the case of the company Total SA from 2005, in which the Council assessed whether the company Total SA should be excluded from the GPF because of contribution to human rights violations in connection with the company?s construction of a pipeline in Burma. In the Total case, the Council presented an overview of the various aspects it took into consideration in its assessment of whether a company should be excluded from the GPF because of its contribution to serious or systematic violations of human rights. . . .  The subject of the Council?s considerations here is similar to that of the Total-case, as it is not necessarily the companies? own activities that are problematic but rather the fact that violations take place where the companies operate. The degree to which the companies possibly contribute towards the violations of norms must be considered in each individual case."    (March 9, 2010 Letter at 2).