Publications

@inbook{RN49321,

title = {Engagement, divestment, or both? Conflicts and interactions: The case of the Norwegian Pension Fund},

author = {Andreas Follesdal},

editor = {Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky and Jernej Letnar Cernic},

url = {http://www.follesdal.net/ms/Follesdal-2014-engagement-divestment-both.pdf},

year  = {2014},

date = {2014-01-01},

urldate = {2014-01-01},

booktitle = {Sovereign Financing},

pages = {323-336},

publisher = {Hart},

address = {Oxford},

abstract = {The Norwegian Government Pension Fund is often regarded as the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world. The Fund merits international attention not only because of its size, but also in terms of its complex mission with regard to responsible investment and the mechanisms it employs in pursuit of this mission. At the same time, the Norwegian Parliament does not want the Fund to contribute to unethical acts or omissions, such as violations of fundamental humanitarian principles, serious violations of human rights, gross corruption or severe environmental damage. It has established two main mechanisms to avoid such complicity. These mechanisms ensure that the Fund is involved in ‘Socially Responsible Investing’ (SRI) of two distinct kinds: An activist approach and a negative approach. 

The following sections explore these mechanisms and discusses tensions among them, against a historic and current background.},

keywords = {Human Rights, Public policy, Publications, SRI - Socially responsible investing},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {inbook}

}

@inbook{RN48827,

title = {Cosmopolitanism in Practice? The case of the Norwegian Government Pension Fund},

author = {Andreas Follesdal},

editor = {Cecilia Bailliet and Katja Franko Aas},

url = {http://follesdal.net/ms/Follesdal-2011-cosmopolitanism-investment.rtf},

year  = {2011},

date = {2011-01-01},

urldate = {2011-01-01},

booktitle = {Cosmopolitan justice and its discontents},

pages = {205-217},

publisher = {Routledge},

address = {Milton Park},

abstract = {One area where calls for reform of global regimes and of the actors within them are very vocal and visible concerns the responsibilities of corporations and investors. The normative constraints on the investments of the Norwegian Government Pension Fund may be explained and assessed by such trends and standards. The following reflections first comment on globalisation and moral cosmopolitanism. Section 2 lays out a ‘standard’ case for why corporations may legitimately restrict their objectives to value creation for their owners – within domestic settings – and why this argument fails to hold under circumstances of globalisation. Section 3 presents some of the most salient normative objectives and standards for investors, concerning shareholder activism and exclusion. Sections 4 and 5 present the Norwegian Pension Fund Global and how its Council on Ethics brings certain normative standards to bear. Section 6 considers potential conflicts and benefits of coordination between two activities: those of shareholder activism and exclusion, arguing for certain ways to address the conflicts from a cosmopolitan perspective. Section 7 concludes by drawing some lessons from this case.},

keywords = {Publications, SRI - Socially responsible investing},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {inbook}

}

@inbook{RN48540,

title = {Human Rights Investment Filters: A defense},

author = {Andreas Follesdal},

editor = {Andreas Follesdal and Ola Mestad and Gro Nystuen},

url = {http://follesdal.net/ms/Follesdal-2011-hr-disinvestment-defense.rtf},

year  = {2011},

date = {2011-01-01},

urldate = {2011-01-01},

booktitle = {Human Rights, Corporate Complicity and Disinvestment},

pages = {132-155},

publisher = {Cambridge University Press},

address = {Cambridge},

abstract = {Do investors have an obligation to not invest in corporations that contribute to human rights violations? – even when such divestment neither causes changes in the corporations, nor prevents the violations? Is there a justification of divestment that holds up even in the face of general breaches of the norms? Can such a justification avoid reliance on controversial religious views? And are there any grounds to believe that such divestment may be effective against human rights violations, even in the absence of a powerful hegemon that sanctions violations of the norms? 

	The affirmative answers below draw on theories of legitimacy and distributive justice that regard SRI as part of a response to the challenges of globalization. Section 1 frames the issues, drawing on the discussions among Quakers on divesting from the slave trade in the 18th century. Sections 2 and 3 provide a normative defense for some minimal human rights filters on investments under economic globalization. Section 4 addresses several objections.},

keywords = {Human Rights, Publications, SRI - Socially responsible investing},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {inbook}

}

@inbook{RN48530,

title = {Introduction},

author = {Gro Nystuen and Andreas Follesdal and Ola Mestad},

editor = {Gro Nystuen and Andreas Follesdal and Ola Mestad},

url = {ms/Nystuen-Follesdal-Mestad-2011-hr-corporate-complicity-introduction.rtf},

year  = {2011},

date = {2011-01-01},

urldate = {2011-01-01},

booktitle = {Human Rights, Corporate Complicity and Disinvestment},

pages = {1-15},

publisher = {Cambridge University Press},

address = {Cambridge},

abstract = {In the twenty-first century, questions of corporate conduct in relation to human rights have come to the forefront of public attention....Several institutional investors such as pension funds , especially responsible private funds and government funds have established policies and practices to handle issues of corporate involvement which they find unethical.... The discussions of the book lie at the intersection of three important current developments relating to normative frameworks: first, the corporate social responsibility (CSR ) discussion which addresses companies directly rather than the investors’ perspective; second, the ethical, or responsible, investment development; and third, discussions on norms for sovereign wealth funds that are investors of a special breed....It is against this normative background that this book analyses the relationships between investment, companies’ conduct and human rights.... Concepts of complicity in human rights violations are at the core of this book. They are discussed from several philosophical as well as several legal perspectives. The underlying discussion is how to establish norms for assessing corporate conduct and investors’ relationships to 

such conduct, and how to apply them?...},

keywords = {Human Rights, Publications, SRI - Socially responsible investing},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {inbook}

}