Oil in the Amazon: A Case Study in Corporate Power and the Formation of Transnational Legal Norms

Transnational law is typically understood as “all law which regulates actions or events that transcend national frontiers.”[i] This includes domestic laws that mediate among national systems, and international laws which set standards that governments must comply with or provide for through their domestic laws. Scholars of transnational law attempt to navigate the ways in which these overlapping legal systems penetrate and influence one another to create a coherent (and sometimes incoherent) system of norms.

This blog provides a cautionary tale for those interested in transnational law. More specifically, this blog examines the role of power in determining which laws govern matters that transcend national frontiers. I am particularly interested in corporate power and the avenues through which corporations influence the development and application of transnational legal norms. In doing so, corporations may (un)intentionally reproduce structural inequalities and injustices that disadvantage developing nations and perpetuate historical power imbalances in the international political, economic and legal order.[ii] To put this somewhat abstract discussion into context, the blog discusses a specific instance when corporate power was leveraged to the disadvantage of victims of corporate polluting – the now infamous saga between the residents of Lago Agrio and the oil giant Texaco (subsequently acquired by Chevron).