Cécilia Darnault

Legal Governance of Sustainable development

Joseph Stiglitz wisely said that “we are a world community, and like all communities, we must respect rules in order to be able to live together; rules which must be fair and just, which must give due attention to the poor as well as the powerful, and demonstrate a deep sense of honesty and social justice". In this guideline, my research focuses on the analysis of regulatory methods and legal tools mobilized for the governance of this global community through the prism of the objectives of sustainable development and fundamental rights. Is it, whether in humanitarian, environmental, technological or other matters, to determine how to govern our societies in a sustainably responsible manner? To respond to this, it is necessary to analyze the environmental and social risks to which governance systems must respond, to study the legal tools requested and the policies implemented, their efficiency and their inadequacies, to propose more suitable solutions, improved or innovative with the objectives of social justice, sustainable development, and protection of fundamental rights.

A word about the thesis - SME against economic litigation

For a small or medium business, things go far beyond than just a simple economic organization. It is more about an idea, a project, a whole life, than simple economic problematics, whose daily management is harassing. Besides grasping the economic market within which he is evolving, the business manager also needs to stay aware of others concerns, in order to ensure the sustainability of his organization, such as its legal environment. The latter is usualy complex, underrated and at the origin of many risks for the company and its CEO, such as economic litigation. Consequently, "how can he avoids bankruptcy?" Accordingly to the last legislative amendments that express many important transformations of the civil procedure, the creation of new legal governance tools can help the entrepreneur to fight against economic litigation risks. How? By considering the fact that the amendments tend towards accountability, by establishing an obligation of risks prevention, and towards the empowerment of in house counsels by directly participating in the resolution of disputes, corporations has to enforce a legal governance that participates to the prevention of economic litigation.

The thesis proposes a guide for the legal governance of companies, by first introducing a vigilance plan alleviating any legal risk, and by recommending a private resolution solution through the recent raise of alternative dispute resolutions to avoid any economic litigation as a traditional civil lawsuit. Therefore, the thesis is an overview of all the options that entrepeneurs and business managers of small and medium companies have for a safe economic developement to ensure the sustainability of the organisation, in a perpetually evolving legal and social environment, going beyond traditional Justice.

Keywords : SME ; Economic litigation ; Legal Governance ; Legal risk management ; ADR ; Civil procedure.

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Scientific Responsabilities

Reviewer for International Conference: Workshop "AI for Social Good" NeurIPS 2019.