Globally Integrated Corporations as 'Good for the Country': The Impact of Soft Law

Abstract

Societal control over corporations in part depends on the answer to the question of whether there are sufficient incentives or controls on corporations to insure their interests parallel those of society, or in a paraphrase of a famous statement of a half-century ago, is what is good for General Motors good for the country? This paper addresses the traditional way that governments have sought to constrain corporate behavior, how that interaction shifts when corporate subsidiaries are involved, and finally how outsourcing can again readjust that dynamic yet again. Where there are three possible methods to externalize - the use of the corporation itself, a subsidiary as a separate and distinct liability-capturing device, and the ability to move assets outside the country of regulation - soft law becomes a larger player in defining a societal response.