Occupy the System! Societal Constitutionalism and Transnational Corporate Accounting

Abstract

Today's most pressing constitutional question is posed by a global economic system whose expansive tendencies seem no longer controllable. In addressing this question, the theory of Societal Constitutionalism apparently shifts established ideological coordinates by developing a theory of the self-constitutionalization of social spheres. It seeks to combine the virtues of grassroots democracy with the sophistication of systemic social theory. Thus, its normative claim can be formulated as an oxymoron: "Occupy the System!" The claim is an oxymoron because it points to the apparent impossibility of critical social theory in a functionally differentiated society: How can a functional system such as the economy be "occupied" or "democratized"? Yet the oxymoron contains a grain of truth. With a view to the concrete example of transnational standard-setting procedures in the field of corporate accounting, this article examines institutional and systemic processes that enable an emerging political discourse at the core of the global economic system. * Lichtenberg Professor of Transnational Commercial Law and Legal Theory, University of Bremen (Germany).(1897) (describing trade unions and collective bargaining).7. NAPHTALI, supra note 5, at 29. 8. Id. at 30.

Robots, standards and the law: Rivalries between private standards and public policymaking for robot governance

“…However, in contemporary economic and social context, standardization is even more necessary to States. Indeed, standards perform the fundamental function of regulating transnational phenomena (from finance to fishery, from corporate social responsibility to clinical and technological trials) where States do not manage to reach political agreements, through the traditional forms of binding international law ( Fenwick 2013;Kjaer 2013;Renner 2013 ). Thus, also from the perspective of States, standardization constitutes an example of externalization of functions once exclusively held by them ( De Londras 2011 ).…”

Robots, Standards and the Law: Rivalries between Private Standards and Public Policymaking for Robot Governance

“…However, in contemporary economic and social context, standardization is even more necessary to States. Indeed, standards perform the fundamental function of regulating transnational phenomena (from finance to fishery, from corporate social responsibility to clinical and technological trials) where States do not manage to reach political agreements, through the traditional forms of binding international law ( Fenwick 2013;Kjaer 2013;Renner 2013 ). Thus, also from the perspective of States, standardization constitutes an example of externalization of functions once exclusively held by them ( De Londras 2011 ) Highlights that the issue of setting standards and granting interoperability is crucial for future competition in the field of AI and robotics technologies; calls on the Commission to continue to work on the international harmonization of technical standards, in particular together with the European Standardization Organizations and the International Standardization Organization, in order to foster innovation, to avoid fragmentation of the internal market and to guarantee a high level of product safety and consumer protection including where appropriate minimum safety standards in the work environment; stresses the importance of lawful reverse-engineering and open standards, in order to maximize the value of innovation and to ensure that robots can communicate with each other; welcomes, in this respect, the setting up of special technical committees, such as ISO/TC 299 Robotics, dedicated exclusively to developing standards on robotics.…”