Corporate Accountability

This book is an excellent contribution to the analysis of corporate governance frameworks from emerging countries. It analyses a timely issue of corporate governance in the banking industry of two African countries, Nigeria and South Africa, with some of the largest economies based on gross domestic product (see the introduction). The banking sector in Africa is a sector of significant growth, although significantly concentrated. McKinsey insights points out that ‘performance in Africa’s banking system is driven by a diverse mix of markets, each with its own unique strategies and challenges.

This symposium aims to encourage a more systematic and critical scholarly engagement with the delocalization of justice in BHR cases involving harms suffered in African states, and the Global South more broadly. It is our contention that until now, with some notable exceptions, scholarly debates in the BHR sphere have insufficiently focused on the justification for, effectiveness of, and alternatives to this uprooting strategy. Yet, this delocalization lies at the heart of many legal processes and regulatory mechanisms aimed at delivering justice (or corporate accountability) in the Global North for harms that occurred in the Global South. Interrogating this delocalization, and imagining alternative strategies that would enable local populations to gain greater agency through local political and legal processes, should be at the core of scholarship and activism in the BHR field.