A New Story of David and Goliath: The Alien Tort Claims Act Gives Victims of Environmental Injustice in the Developing World a Viable Claim Against Multinational Corporations

Part I of this Comment provides a general background highlighting the tentacular role that multinational corporations play in our globalized world. Part I also stresses the link between extractive industries, environmental destruction and human rights violations, and uses three cases recently brought in U.S. federal courts against multinational corporations to illustrate such linkages. Part II provides general background information regarding the ATCA, its application and circumstances of its passage. Most important, Part II discusses the general opacity surrounding the birth of the ATCA and concludes that such nebulous origins contributed to the confusion practitioners meet today in its application. Part III analyzes the various hurdles met by plaintiffs in order to bring a successful claim. Various policy pressures militate against finding for the plaintiffs so that much time is spent fighting on doctrinal, constitutional and procedural grounds to the detriments of the merits of the claim. Part IV proves that a minimum standard of environmental protection in international law exists and constitutes a binding customary principle. This part focuses on the principle of prohibition of significant transboundary environmental harm. Governments and citizens in developed countries can find a substantial interest in the recognition of this principle because making profit from weak environmental regulations has shown to be dangerously shortsighted. Finally, the conclusion emphasizes the extreme importance of the ATCA, as the only legal tool existing so far to scrutinize MNCs\u27 activities abroad

Le salarié lanceur d’alerte aux États-Unis et en France : pour une articulation harmonieuse entre dissidence et loyauté

Lorsqu’un salarié a connaissance de faits condamnables dans l’entreprise heurtant son sens civique et sa conscience, et que, se sentant tout autant citoyen dans la Cité que sur son lieu de travail, il décide de les dénoncer, son engagement loyal vis-à-vis de l’employeur peut se trouver mis à mal. À partir de la théorie sociologique et économique des mobilisations développée par Albert O. Hirschman, la présente étude confronte l’appréhension juridique de l’alerte et l’obligation salariale de loyauté aux États-Unis et en France. Elle examine comment les droits français et américain perçoivent cette prise de parole individuelle qui fait du salarié lanceur d’alerte un agent « embarqué », un pied dans l’entreprise en tant que salarié, un pied à l’extérieur en tant que « procureur privé » œuvrant pour l’intérêt général. Plus largement, elle interroge la capacité du droit à épouser des conceptions de l’obligation salariale de loyauté, des sanctions de son manquement, mais aussi du lien de subordination et des rapports hiérarchiques, de la liberté d’expression et des limitations qu’on peut lui apporter dans l’entreprise, qui peuvent accommoder l’action individuelle sans compromettre l’unité du groupe.When an employee is aware of illegal, irregular, dangerous or unethical facts or practices, and while feeling equally citizen outside and within the workplace, he decides to report them, his loyal commitment to the organization may be undermined. Based on Albert O. Hirschman’s sociological and economic resources mobilization theory, this study confronts US and French whistleblower legislations and case law to the employee’s duty of loyalty to the employer. It analyzes how US and French law perceive this particular type of individual protest which converts the whistleblower into an embedded agent, one foot inside the organization as an employee, one foot outside as a private prosecutor acting for the common good. More generally, it questions the ability of the law to build conceptions of the employee’s duty of loyalty, reactions to its breaches, as well as subordination relationships and vertical hierarchy, freedom of speech and its limits in the workplace, which can accommodate individual action without compromising the unity of the group

High-quality SNPs from genic regions highlight introgression patterns among European white oaks (Quercus petraea and Q. robur)

International audienceIn the post-genomics era, non-model species like most Fagaceae still lack operational diversity resources for population genomics studies. Sequence data were produced from over 800 gene fragments covering ~530 kb across the genic partition of European oaks, in a discovery panel of 25 individuals from western and central Europe (11 Quercus petraea, 13 Q. robur, one Q. ilex as an outgroup). Regions targeted represented broad functional categories potentially involved in species ecological preferences, and a random set of genes. Using a high-quality dedicated pipeline, we provide a detailed characterization of these genic regions, which included over 14500 polymorphisms, with ~12500 SNPs −218 being triallelic-, over 1500 insertion-deletions, and ~200 novel di- and tri-nucleotide SSR loci. This catalog also provides various summary statistics within and among species, gene ontology information, and standard formats to assist loci choice for genotyping projects. The distribution of nucleotide diversity (θπ) and differentiation (FST) across genic regions are also described for the first time in those species, with a mean n θπ close to ~0.0049 in Q. petraea and to ~0.0045 in Q. robur across random regions, and a mean FST ~0.13 across SNPs. The magnitude of diversity across genes is within the range estimated for long-term perennial outcrossers, and can be considered relatively high in the plant kingdom, with an estimate across the genome of 41 to 51 million SNPs expected in both species. Individuals with typical species morphology were more easily assigned to their corresponding genetic cluster for Q. robur than for Q. petraea, revealing higher or more recent introgression in Q. petraea and a stronger species integration in Q. robur in this particular discovery panel. We also observed robust patterns of a slightly but significantly higher diversity in Q. petraea, across a random gene set and in the abiotic stress functional category, and a heterogeneous landscape of both diversity and differentiation. To explain these patterns, we discuss an alternative and non-exclusive hypothesis of stronger selective constraints in Q. robur, the most pioneering species in oak forest stand dynamics, additionally to the recognized and documented introgression history in both species despite their strong reproductive barriers. The quality of the data provided here and their representativity in terms of species genomic diversity make them useful for possible applications in medium-scale landscape and molecular ecology projects. Moreover, they can serve as reference resources for validation purposes in larger-scale resequencing projects. This type of project is preferentially recommended in oaks in contrast to SNP array development, given the large nucleotide variation and the low levels of linkage disequilibrium revealed

La tradition tauromachique devant le Conseil constitutionnel

International audience(Cons. const., 21 septembre 2012, Association Comité radicalement anti-corrida Europe et autre, n° 2012-271 QPC, AJDA 2012. 1770 ; D. 2012. 2486, note X. Daverat

La tradition tauromachique devant le Conseil constitutionnel

International audience(Cons. const., 21 septembre 2012, Association Comité radicalement anti-corrida Europe et autre, n° 2012-271 QPC, AJDA 2012. 1770 ; D. 2012. 2486, note X. Daverat

Le juge et la responsabilité sociale de l'entreprise

International audienc

Le juge et la responsabilité sociale de l'entreprise

International audienc

Le quitus

International audienc

Gouvernance d'entreprise et gouvernance écologique : Académie internationale d'été

International audienc

La tradition tauromachique devant le Conseil constitutionnel

International audience(Cons. const., 21 septembre 2012, Association Comité radicalement anti-corrida Europe et autre, n° 2012-271 QPC, AJDA 2012. 1770 ; D. 2012. 2486, note X. Daverat