This essay argues that contemporary Caribbean women exploit the malleability of life writing as a genre in a variety of ways that recognize the precariousness of life-making and self-making in the post-plantation Caribbean. While each of the writers discussed here critically refashions life-narrative for their own distinct purposes, they frequently share an interest in filtering personal life experiences through familiar familial and regional histories to emphasize the imbrication of the personal and political. Narrating life-stories is presented in these texts as inextricably linked to the difficult cultural politics of self-making that is so powerfully evidenced from The History of Mary Prince through to the present. While life-writing remains haunted by the region’s violent history, Caribbean women writers continue to excavate that history in order to record, affirm, rescue, restore, and celebrate self and life-making possibilities, however fragmented, precarious, or itinerant.

This chapter examines the nature of fiduciary duties. They are difficult to define but include loyalty, acting in good faith and ensuring that there is no conflict of interest. This relationship arises where one person has undertaken to act for another. E.g. trustee and beneficiary, solicitor and client, and company director and board. Such relationships also arise where it develops from the nature of the duties owed such as the employer and employee relationship. Not all duties owed by a fiduciary are fiduciary in nature such as the duty of care owed by a solicitor to his client. The emphasis in this area of law is on the fact that a fiduciary cannot make a profit from his position and any profit will be owed to his principal e.g. a trustee must disgorge any profits made through his position as a director if the directorship is attributable to his trusteeship. The law does not differentiate between profits made in good faith and those made in bad faith. Much of the chapter concentrates on the question of bribes and opportunities that arise through the position of a fiduciary. The law is now settled that the principal can claim a proprietary remedy rather than a personal remedy which is relevant where a fiduciary is bankrupt as the principal will have the first claim to any funds held by the fiduciary.

Another barrier to remedy for victims of human rights abuses is that courts may lack jurisdiction over the defendant in the case. As a threshold matter, for a court to adjudicate a case, it must have jurisdiction over the person who is the defendant, known as in personam jurisdiction, or personal jurisdiction. Almost always a court will have personal jurisdiction over an entity (a parent, subsidiary, or other entity) if it is domiciled or incorporated in the court’s country. Thus, if a victim of a human rights abuse can bring a claim against the corporate entity involved the harm in the country where the victim lives and the harm occurs, because the entity is domiciled or headquartered there, personal jurisdiction usually exists and will not typically pose a barrier to remedy. Similarly, if a victim is able to bring a claim for extraterritorial harm against the parent company in the parent company’s domicile or country where they are headquartered (either because they can “pierce the corporate veil” or because of the availability of an alternative theory allowing the victim to sue the parent), personal jurisdiction typically will not present a problem. Unfortunately, and as discussed above, in the high-risk countries and industries where human rights abuses take place, these situations are comparatively rare. Either the host country does not permit the cause of action, or there is no ability to pierce the corporate veil, or there is another barrier to suit. However, where a victim attempts to sue an entity, whether a parent, subsidiary or other entity, in a country that allows a cause of action for the harm but is not the country of legal domicile, personal jurisdiction may pose an insurmountable obstacle. For example, due to barriers in their own country, a victim might try to seek damages against an offending entity, such as a subsidiary, in the country where its parent is located; similarly, a victim may try to seek damages against a parent company that was involved in the abuse where it conducts substantial business, has offices, or operates through a subsidiary or subsidiaries. It is in these situations, where the country may well provide a cause of action that would allow the victim to bring a claim, that courts might find they do not have personal jurisdiction over the proposed defendant entity, and thus cannot adjudicate the case.

As discussed in Part I, there is increasing international consensus that it is unfair and unjust for parent corporations to receive the immense financial benefits derived from operations of subsidiaries or affiliates while being able to avoid liability when those wholly owned subsidiaries engage in human rights violations, even if the parent corporation is not directly at fault. Indeed, it is clear that the doctrine of limited liability, as applied to corporate parents, should be reconsidered – at least in circumstances such as high-risk industries operating within fragile or high-risk countries where remedies for serious torts are probably unavailable within the legal system of the subsidiary’s domicile.