Doing Business has been a (if not the) core concern for the post-WWII world order, leading up to contemporary economic globalisation and the ‘free’ movement of goods, capital and ideas across the globe. With our research project, and the launch of this companion blog, we aim to shift the focus towards Doing Business Right. Thanks to the financial crisis in 2008, there is growing awareness of the fact that Doing Business can lead to extremely adverse social and economic consequences. The trust in Doing Business as a cure-all to modernize, democratize, or civilize the world is fading. Moreover, the damaging externalities prompted by the operation of transnational economic activity are more and more visible. It has become harder, nowadays, to ignore the environmental and social consequences triggered elsewhere by our consumption patterns or by our reliance on certain energy industries. What does Doing Business Right mean? How does the law respond to the urge to do business right? What are the legal mechanisms used, or that could be used, to ensure that business is done in the right way? Can transnational business activity even be subjected to law in a globalized world?

This blog will offer an academic platform for scholars and practitioners interested in these questions. With your help we aim to investigate the multiple legal and regulatory constructs affecting transnational business conduct - ranging from public international law to internal corporate practices. We will do so by hosting in-depth case studies, but also more theoretical takes on the normative underpinnings of the idea of Doing Business Right. We aim to be inclusive in methodological terms, and believe that private and public, as well as national and international, legal (and...) scholars should come together to tackle a genuinely transnational phenomenon. Future posts will cover issues as diverse as national, EU, international, transnational regulations - including self-regulation, voluntary codes, and market-based regulatory instruments  - applying to transnational business conduct. Case law from the CJEU, international tribunals (ICJ, arbitral tribunals) and national courts, as well as decisions from international organisations, national agencies (such as competition authorities) will be recurring objects of discussion and analysis. Yet, our perspective is not solely focused on the (traditional) law: management practices of  companies and their effects will also be scrutinized.

This blog is thought as an open discursive space to engage and debate with a wide variety of actors and perspectives. We hope to get the attention of those who care about Doing Business Right, and to provide useful intellectual and legal weapons for their endeavours.

The Editors:

Antoine Duval is a Senior researcher at the Asser Institute since 2014. He holds a PhD from the European University Institute in Florence in which he scrutinized the interaction between EU law and the transnational private regulation of world sport, the lex sportiva. His research is mainly focused on transnational legal theory, international arbitration, and private regulation.  

Enrico Partiti is researcher at the Asser Institute since 2017. He holds a PhD from the University of Amsterdam on private standards for sustainability. His research interest lies at the intersection of EU and international economic law on the one hand, and private regulation for sustainability on the other. He studies the interactions and reciprocal influence between transnational public and private norms, and how they determine and impact on social and environmental sustainability in global value chains.