States, Firms, and Their Legal Fictions
Attributing Identity and Responsibility to Artificial Entities

This cross-disciplinary book explores the law's diverse ways of constructing the identities and responsibilities of firms and states.

Melissa J. Durkee (Edited by)

9781009334679, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 7 March 2024

302 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.3 cm, 0.6 kg

This volume offers a new point of entry into questions about how the law conceives of states and firms. Because states and firms are fictitious constructs rather than products of evolutionary biology, the law dictates which acts should be attributed to each entity, and by which actors. Those legal decisions construct firms and states by attributing identity and consequences to them. As the volume shows, these legal decisions are often products of path dependence or conceptual metaphors like “personhood” that have expanded beyond their original uses. Focusing on attribution, the volume considers an array of questions about artificial entities that are usually divided into doctrinal siloes. These include questions about attribution of international legal responsibility to states and state-owned entities, transnational attribution of liabilities to firms, and attribution of identity rights to corporations. Durkee highlights the artificiality of doctrines that construct firms and states, and therefore their susceptibility to change.

Introduction
1. States, Firms, and their Legal Fictions Melissa J. Durkee
Part I. International Attribution: 2. Attribution in International Law: Challenges and Evolution Kristen E. Boon
3. Between States and Firms: Attribution and the Construction of the Shareholder State Mikko Rajavuori
4. Contractors and Hybrid Warfare: A Pluralist Approach to Reforming the Law of State Responsibility Laura Dickinson
5. The Enduring Charter: Corporations, States, and International Law Doreen Lustig
Part II. Transnational Attribution: 6. Corporate Structures and the Attribution Dilemma in Multinational Enterprises James T. Gathii and Olabisi D. Akinkugbe
7. Transnational Blame Attribution: The Limits of Using Reputational Sanctions to Punish Corporate Misconduct Kishanthi Parella
8. Mind the Agency Gap in Corporate Social Responsibility Dalia Palombo
Part III. Domestic Attribution: 9. To Whom Should We Attribute A Corporation's Speech? Sarah C. Haan
10. What is a Corporate Mind? Mental State Attribution Benjamin P. Edwards
11. Who is a Corporation? Attributing the Moral Might of the Corporate Form Catherine A. Hardee
Part IV. Conceptual Origins and Lineages: 12. The Juridical Person of the State: Origins and Implications David Ciepley
13. Corporate Personhood as Legal and Literary Fiction Joshua Barkan.

Subject Areas: Jurisprudence & general issues [LA]