Legal knowledge is a powerful tool for generating organizational value, but like any other valuable asset, it is vulnerable to misuse. First, the chapter highlights the extant literature on ethics and the strategic use of legal knowledge. Second, it identifies an innovative but underutilized UN regime which articulates a promising suite of values-based legal principles in support of ethical practice. Third, the chapter highlights the potential of a literature known as proactive law that can help reimagine how scholars and firms view legal knowledge in human terms. Finally, the chapter identifies how the culture of an organization can be a powerful force in support of values-driven applications of legal knowledge. The chapter concludes that, while there is much potential to develop ethical practices in the utilization of legal knowledge, much work needs to be done in order to better understand the ethical implications of legal knowledge and to mature ideal principles and practices into reality.

Chapter 4 assesses the history of companies in the international environmental law movement.Traditional voluntary-only approaches of industry groups to international environmental law led to a burgeoning of largely voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. A review of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol are provided, along with a detailed examination of the Paris Agreement. Unlike previous experiences with international environmental law, many non-state actors supported the Paris Agreement, and some even wanted to become a party to it. While it remains a state-based treaty, non-state actors have become a main pillar of its implementation, particularly its long-term temperature goals. This international consensus shifting on climate change has led to new CSR and private environmental governance initiatives, specifically around climate change. These are eliciting a compliance reaction from many companies, with net-zero emissions targets announced by a variety of industry actors. Examples of Canadian Supreme Court decisions around corporate citizenship, the King IV Report from South Africa and CSR provisions in the Indian Companies Act 2013, as well as new corporate climate reporting requirements in the United Kingdom based on the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures, are illustrative of this shift.

Chinese firms have a poor history of questionable practices that have caused various public relations crises in domestic and international markets. This chapter examines the development of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Chinese firms, including their drivers and their current state. To prevent Chinese firms from having profit maximisation as their sole objective, the Chinese government positioned CSR as an area central to the country’s stability and future growth. It has also developed guidelines for firms in line with the United Nations Global Compact and encouraged firms to adopt them in their corporate policies and activities. The chapter ends by examining the CSR practices adopted by Huawei, a major Chinese firm, in its overseas operations, including those in Africa.