Melbourne Law School - Research Publications

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    Meta-regulation: legal accountability for corporate social responsibility
    Parker, C (Routledge, 2017-01-01)
    The chapter argues that legal accountability for corporate social responsibility (CSR) must be aimed at making business enterprises put themselves through a CSR process aimed at CSR outcomes. It sets out what meta-regulating law must do and be in order to hold companies accountable for their responsibility. The chapter briefly explains how this notion of meta-regulating law relates to the plurality of legal, non-legal and quasi-legal ‘governance’ mechanisms at work in a globalising, post-regulatory’ world. It also sets out the critique that law which attempts to meta-regulate corporate responsibility will focus on internal governance processes in a way that allows business to avoid the conflict between self-interest and social values, and therefore to avoid accountability. Meta-regulatory law is a response to the recognition that law itself is regulated by non-legal regulation, and should therefore seek to adapt itself to plural forms of regulation.
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    Consumer Choice as a Pathway to Food Diversity: A Case Study of Açaí Berry Product Labelling
    Johnson, H ; Parker, C ; Maguire, R ; Isoni, A ; Troisi, M ; Pierri, M (Springer International Publishing, 2018)
    Forest lands and the rich social and ecological diversity contained within are being lost as demand for agriculture land expands globally. During this process traditional cultivation practices are marginalised resulting in a loss of dietary diversity. As Vira et al. observe 'Despite the huge potential of forest and tree foods to contribute to diets, knowledge on many forest foods, especially wild foods, is rapidly being lost because of social change and modernisation' . Forest loss coupled with the associ­ated declines in dietary diversity and traditional knowledge are a threat to the human right to food. This right requires diverse food production systems that are sustain­able, support livelihoods (especially those who are most marginalised) and meet nutritional needs. This chapter explores the exporting and labelling of a traditional food source the "acai berry" and examines whether the production and sale of acai has the potential to improve food diversity.
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    Lawyers as Whistleblowers: The Need for a Gatekeeper of Justice Whistleblowing Obligation/Exception
    Le Mire, S ; Parker, C ; Levy, R ; O'Brien, M ; Rice, S ; Ridge, P ; Thornton, M (ANU Press, 2017)
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    Compliance: 14 Questions
    Parker, C ; Nielsen, VL ; Drahos, P (ANU Press, 2017)
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    Moving towards Ecological Regulation: The Role of Criminalisation
    Haines, F ; Parker, C ; Holley, C ; Shearing, C (Routledge - Taylor & Francis, 2017)
    Contemporary society faces multiple and interacting environmental challenges that require transformational change in the conduct of business. We take one of these challenges, the need to combat anthropogenic climate change, to interrogate what is required in transforming business regulation towards what we term ‘ecological regulation’. This transition requires us to grapple with how business regulation is currently framed and how change will effect such regulation. Regulation is largely premised both on the benefits of economic competition and for the control of particular harms to take place in an discrete case-by-case manner. Current moral and legal strategies used by activists in attempting to engender a dramatic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by business interact with current forms of regulation in distinct ways. The former involves activists staking a moral case for criminalisation of ecological damage through naming and shaming strategies. This may shift the moral boundaries of acceptable business behaviour. The latter is achieved by ‘bracing’ greenhouse gas reduction with existing business regulation that can bring some legal accountability to bear. We show how these strategies begin to reframe regulatory regimes as well as what ecological regulation might look like if full legal authority in enshrining a respect for ecological limits were added the contemporary framing of business regulation.
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    From responsive regulation to ecological compliance: meta-regulation and the existential challenge of corporate compliance
    Parker, C ; van Rooij, B ; SOKOL, DD (Cambridge University Press, 2021)
    This chapter revisits the significance of responsive regulation for theories of compliance. It shows how responsive regulation’s theory of compliance recognises both multiple motivations for compliance and plural actors who help negotiate and construct compliance. It argues that responsive regulation theory implies responsive compliance and that this can help build possibilities for deliberative democratic responsibility and accountability of both businesses and regulators. This is the idea that Parker previously labelled the meta-regulation of the “open corporation”. This chapter concludes that since business activity, and indeed human development, now face the existential challenge of socio ecological disruption and collapse in which profit oriented commercial activity is a significant driver, theories of compliance need to expand to concern themselves with how whole markets and industries can be made responsive to both social and ecological embeddedness. Regulatory compliance scholars need to pay attention to how networks of interacting business, government and civil society and social movement actors can influence business activity profoundly enough to shift the very nature of “business as usual”. The chapter therefore proposes the need for “ecological compliance” as a development of Ayres and Braithwaite’s analysis of compliance.
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    Introduction
    Park, C-M ; Uslaner, EM ; Park, CM ; Uslaner, EM (ROUTLEDGE, 2020)
    BACKGROUND: One important way to transform food systems for human and planetary health would be to reduce the production and consumption of animals for food. The over-production and over-consumption of meat and dairy products is resource-intensive, energy-dense and creates public health and food equity risks, including the creation of superbugs and antimicrobial resistance, contamination and pollution of land and waterways, and injustice to animals and humans who work in the sector. Yet the continuing and expanding use of animals is entrenched in food systems. One policy response frequently suggested by parties from all sectors (industry, government and civil society) is voluntary or mandatory labelling reforms to educate consumers about the healthiness and sustainability of food products, and thus reduce demand. This paper evaluates the pitfalls and potentials of labelling as an incremental regulatory governance stepping-stone to transformative food system change. METHODS: We use empirical data from a study of the regulatory politics of animal welfare and environmental claims on Australian products together with an ecological regulation conceptual approach to critically evaluate the potential of labelling as a regulatory mechanism. RESULTS: We show that labelling is generally ineffective as a pathway to transformative food system change for three reasons: it does not do enough to redistribute power away from dominant actors to those harmed by the food system; it is vulnerable to greenwashing and reductionism; and it leads to market segmentation rather than collective political action. CONCLUSION: We suggest the need for regulatory governance that is ecological by design. Labelling can only be effective when connected to a broader suite of measures to reduce overall production and consumption of meat. We conclude with some recommendations as to how public health advocates and policy entrepreneurs might strategically use and contest labelling and certification schemes to build support for transformative food system change and to avoid the regressive consequences of labelling.
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    The Consumer Labelling Turn in Farmed Animal Welfare Politics: From the Margins of Animal Advocacy to Mainstream Supermarket Shelves
    Parker, C ; Carey, R ; Scrinis, G ; Phillipov, M ; Kirkwood, K (Routledge, 2019)
    “Free range” and other higher welfare label claims are increasingly visible on Australian egg, pork and chicken meat products. This paper critically examines the way in which these claims have shifted animal welfare concerns from the “margins” of the animal advocacy movement to the “mainstream” of everyday consumer choice. It asks what has been lost and what gained as mainstream producers and retailers have adopted these label claims. The chapter argues that the growing market share of higher welfare labelled foods and the increasing public discussion and contestation of the meaning of terms such as “free range”, “free to roam” and “bred free range” does represent the success of animal advocacy campaigns aimed at activating mainstream consumers to express their concern about animal welfare. At the same time label claims also exhibit the creativity of industry and retailers in appropriating and accommodating civil society critiques of dominant production and distribution systems by narrowing down the range of contested issues, and sentimentalising, simplifying and de-radicalising potential solutions. This indicates a governance gap - a chasm between what can be achieved via voluntary certification and labelling and the need for a more inclusive, sustainable and official government regulation of animal welfare.
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    Meta-Regulation: Legal Accountability for Corporate Social Responsibility
    Parker, C ; McBarnet, D ; Voiculescu, A ; Campbell, T (Cambridge University Press, 2007)