From the climate crisis to social justice, how Soas is helping students take a different approach to traditional professions
Social justice hasn’t typically been the first thing that comes to people’s minds when they think about the worlds of finance and the law. Indeed, the professions might well conjure up images of bankers and stockbrokers stopping at nothing to maximise profits – or perhaps corporate lawyers in sharp suits protecting the interests of their big-money clients.
But in more recent years, a shift has quietly been taking place as corporations are increasingly forced to consider their real impact on the wider world.
“Corporate social responsibility is now being taken seriously by the financial sector,” says Dr Richard Alexander, senior lecturer in financial law at the Soas school of finance and management. He highlights the recent rise of so-called ESG standards that factor in a company’s environmental impact, social justice credentials and governance practices. For example, since 2022 the largest British companies have been obliged to make climate-related financial disclosures, taking stock of their environmental impact rather than solely financial metrics such as profits and shareholder value.
The motivations behind the shifts might vary. There are carrots and there are sticks, and it’s fair to say the new attitudes and priorities aren’t always just driven by pure goodwill. For instance, corporate action might be driven by new regulatory and disclosure requirements, investor concerns about financial risk, or marketing departments eager to appeal to increasingly socially-conscious consumers.
But Alexander notes that these industry-wide shifts have had an impact on the people working in law and finance, and their reasons for entering these professions in the first place. “There are people in banks who genuinely want to do the right thing,” he says. “We’re now seeing mainstream banks funding green energy projects.”
While the buzz around ESG might have been tempered somewhat by a backlash from rightwing politicians, the fight against climate change remains in large part an urgent mission to reallocate financial resources. The same goes for the fight to improve social justice. The financial and legal professions have therefore woken up to the roles they can play in tackling urgent global problems.
Soas’s long-established concern with economic, social and climate justice makes it an ideal place for students trying to navigate these shifts. Moreover, its emphasis on fresh perspectives and a focus on the global south makes it a perfect place for thinking more ambitiously about the new roles and responsibilities of legal and financial professionals.
And that’s why Alexander has dedicated his scholarship to exploring how the law can be used in novel ways to hold the largest companies in the world to account for their climate impact.
Prosecuting ‘terracide’
Alexander recently spoke at the Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime, and made the case for the creation of new international law for prosecuting what he calls “terracide” – the destruction of Earth.
“The symposium has had regular sessions looking at issues of damage to the environment, and the idea of environmental crimes, not just minor regulatory offences,” says Alexander.
If the terracide movement takes off, gross negligence towards the environment could no longer mean a financial penalty from the Environment Agency – but could see culprits prosecuted as international criminals. Alexander argues that there is in fact a sound legal basis for treating terracide as a crime, based on how the law already works. “In the UK, we have a number of breaches of environmental law that are actually crimes,” he says. “Those crimes are committed in order to make money, because to do things cleanly, in a green way, is more expensive.”
So in his view, existing criminal laws can apply, and the Proceeds of Crime Act (pdf) can be used to take on climate criminals. As the law currently stands, the “criminal lifestyle” provisions can be used to confiscate money and other assets acquired as a result of crime. “For every crime that produces a profit or produces proceeds, those proceeds are criminal property for the purposes of our anti-money laundering laws and our confiscation and civil recovery laws.” These rules could apply to polluting businesses, says Alexander, and be used against corporations.
“Create that kind of environment, and very quickly, banks will start to decide that companies that play fast and loose with climate change are no longer worth having on the books,” he adds. “They’re just too risky.”
Islamic finance for social justice
It isn’t just climate where big, bold ideas and legal scholarship are upending conventional financial industry thinking. One of Alexander’s colleagues, Dr Jonathan Ercanbrack, a senior lecturer in transnational financial law and director of the centre of Islamic and Middle Eastern law, has dedicated his career to exploring how taking lessons from Islamic finance can help shift business in a more social justice-oriented direction.
At the heart of the Islamic approach to finance are several ideas that aren’t common in the west, such as the prohibition on charging interest, limitations on more speculative forms of investment, and a focus on shared prosperity and risk.
“Essentially this is viewing economics differently, according to a global south [perspective], and understanding that the meaning of economics differs quite markedly from our global north understanding,” says Ercanbrack,
“Islamic finance wants to facilitate more equity investment, and more profit and loss sharing, so that we have an economy that’s not based on winners and losers, but in fact is more equitable in the sense that we all have a stake in it,” says Ercanbrack. “Another way of describing the same thing from a less religious-inspired legal system is stakeholder capitalism.”
And he believes that Islamic finance more deeply embeds some of these emerging social justice principles. “The embedded values of our global financial system ultimately are part of the problem,” says Ercanbrack. “They are part of the reason why there is less social justice, because it’s more about individualism.”
And it is something more like this approach that we’ll need if we want to deeply embed new values into our financial system. “Ultimately environmentalism or other social justice concerns reflect a greater concern for the public interest, and a growing consciousness that we need to give up some of our individualistic freedoms for the public good. We come up with environmental laws to protect the public interest, despite the infringement on an individual’s liberty.”
In both cases, the bold ideas promoted by Alexander and Ercanbrack have emerged from their work at Soas, a university that centres the global south and alternative perspectives. “Social justice famously goes to the heart of what Soas is about,” says Alexander.
Ultimately, it is only by learning to think differently that we can expose ourselves to new ideas – and potentially find new ways to engage with and improve our world.
“Soas is an institution that has been founded specifically with the purpose of the study of the developing world,” says Ercanbrack. “That collection of academic expertise produces a cultural and an academic context that is a wonderful resource to learn from and to grow, to help the United Kingdom navigate this increasingly complex world.”
Find out how studying at Soas University of London could expand your mindset and your horizons
