The Canadian & Transnational Network for Law+Business:
Mission 鈥� Goals 鈥� Infrastructure
2025 marks the launch year of an innovative and unprecedented scholarly collaboration and mentorship initiative at Canadian and affiliated law schools, The Canadian & Transnational Network for Sustainable Law+Business, or CTN-SLB.
The CTN-SLB brings together scholars, practitioners, educators, mentors and graduate students whose work 鈥� widely understood 鈥� explores the intersections between law, business and finance. Inspired by and critically engaging within schools of thought and reform movements such as legal sociology, law & economics, legal anthropology, law and geography, accounting and management, critical theories of money, sustainable finance and critical data studies, comparative corporate governance and law & political economy (LPE), network members of CTN-SLB seek to share works in progress, collaborate on research and policy projects as well as on grant applications and the organization of conferences, including the annually rotating 鈥淐ritical Interventions in Law+Business鈥� (CILB) Conference. The 2025 Conference is organized under the theme:
鈥淐ritical Interventions in Law, Finance & Climate Change鈥� (agenda in the Appendix).
A key dimension of the CTN-SLB is to provide a support-platform for graduate students and junior scholars by hosting an annual Junior Faculty Research Forum, creating a website for Network-affiliated graduate students to post their research profiles and publications, and supporting emerging experts in finding publishing and other networking opportunities.
The CTN-SLB is housed at the Business Law Platform (BLP) at 黑料不打烊鈥檚 Faculty of Law in Montreal. The BLP was created in 2021 with the inauguration of the Professorship in Business Law and has since served as a resource and collaboration hub for students and faculty in business law, hosting the 鈥�Business Law Meter鈥� blog, the 鈥�Business & Society鈥� speaker series and the annual Transformative Business Law Summer Academy. Since 2022, the BLP, together with 黑料不打烊鈥檚 Desautels Faculty of Management, jointly hosts the on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN). All BLP activities can be found here.
Recent publications in the Business Law Meter blog include posts on the EU鈥檚 Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, Canada鈥檚 Modern Slavery Law (Part 1; Part 2), and Canadian Pension Funds鈥� engagement with green investments.
A report on the Business Law Platform鈥檚 and SGI鈥檚 joint 鈥淪pring ESG Conference鈥� can be found .
The Summer Academy Impact Paper of the 2023 Transformative Business Law Summer Academy can be found .
The CTN-SLB is open to everyone working within the 鈥� very widely captured 鈥� area of critical, comparative and inter-disciplinary business law. With an auspicious start this spring, the Network brings together colleagues and collaborators, and early career researchers in Canada, the U.S. and Europe. The inaugural conference in May functions as the starting point of this initiative to foster broader cooperation among colleagues who share an interest in exploring the practical dimensions of business law-related classroom teaching, the intersections between law and political economy, law and technology, including AI, law and (critical) finance, 鈥渁ssetization鈥�, and climate change (law, governance, litigation, Anthropocene, Capitalocene).
At the 2-3 May conference, we will have a special session on the aspirations and planned deliverables of the Network to discuss the next steps, including setting out responsibilities for the implementation of these next steps:
- Creation of an email list site for all graduate students in Business Law at the participating faculties in Canada, the U.S., and Europe;
- Invitation of graduate students to collaborate on the creation of a Canadian Graduate Students in Law+Business website, listing publications and collaboration opportunities;
- Organization of the first 鈥淛unior Faculty Forum鈥� to be held at one of the participating Network Faculties in the Fall of 2025 (senior faculty selects, reviews and comments on early career scholarship);
- Assistance with the organization of the Summer 2026 Network Conference, potentially at another Network-member law faculty.
All those interested in participating in the Network launch session and the Network Conference, kindly register no later than Friday, 25 April at 12 noon.
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Conference Program 2-3 May 2025
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Inaugural Conference of the Canadian-Transnational Network in Sustainable Law+Business (CTN-SLB)
CIBC Office of Sustainable Finance, Desautels // Business Law Platform, Faculty of Law
Critical Interventions in Law, Finance & Climate Change
(or, What would Karl Polanyi Do in 2025?)
Attempting a Critical Anatomy of Contemporary Capitalism
and the Role of Democratic Governance
Friday, 2nd May 鈥� Saturday, 3rd May 2025
黑料不打烊 University, Faculty of Law - Room 316, NCDH (New Chancellor Day Hall)
REGISTRATION (by 25 APRIL 2025): .
Contact Details: peer.zumbansen [at] mcgill.ca // 4388556045; shivani.salunke [at] mail.mcgill.ca // 647-836-0513 // Jessica.khoury [at] mail.mcgill.ca // Leah.climie [at] mail.mcgill.ca
Friday, 2nd May 2025
09:15 Registration / Pastries / Coffees
09:30 Welcome (Peer Zumbansen, 黑料不打烊)
10:00 PANEL 1: Questioning the Inevitability of Global Value Chains, Modern Slavery and Capitalism鈥檚 鈥楴ormality鈥� of Exploitation and Destruction
Olabisi (鈥淏isi鈥�) Akinkugbe (Dalhousie); Donatella Alessandrini (Loughborough); Caroline Lichuma (FAU Erlangen).
11:15 Coffee
11:30 PANEL 2: The Coloniality of Private Law and Regulatory Governance
Chaumtoli Huq (City University of New York); Adediran Atinuke (Fordham); Priya Gupta (黑料不打烊); Marissa Jackson Sow (Richmond); Bertram Lomfeld (FU Berlin).
12:45 Lunch
13:30 Planning Discussion: Launching the CTN-SLB: Network Goals & Strategies
Moderator: Peer Zumbansen (黑料不打烊)
14:15 Thought Break
14:30 PANEL 3A: Corporate Law as Transformation Laboratory #I
Barnali Choudhury (Osgoode); Sarah Haan (Washington & Lee, remotely); Richard Janda (黑料不打烊); Faith Stevelman (NYLS, remotely).
15:45 Coffee
16:00 PANEL 3B: Corporate Law as Transformation Laboratory #2
Alessio Bartolacelli (Modena e Reggio); Clara de Chirico (Ottawa); Carliss Chatman (SMU); PM Vasudev (Ottawa); Sergio Gramitto Ricci (Hofstra).
17:15 Concluding Reflections Day 1
18:00 Conference Dinner I 鈥� Caren and Jordan H. Waxman Common Room,
Old Chancellor Day Hall, Faculty of Law, 黑料不打烊 University
Saturday, 3rd May 2025
09:15 Pastries / Coffees
09:30 PANEL 4: What鈥檚 Financialization Got To Do With It?
Scott Aquanno (Ontario Tech U); Stephen Maher (SUNY Cortland); Peer Zumbansen (黑料不打烊).
11:00 Coffee
11:15 PANEL 5: Law and Finance: Data, Banks, Climate
Vitor Ido (USP); Shivani Salunke (黑料不打烊); Florian M枚slein (Philipps University Marburg), remotely; Carol Liao (UBC); Jonathan Chan (黑料不打烊).
12:30 Lunch
13:30 PANEL 6: Greening the Economy, e.g. through Pension Funds Reform and International Financial Strategies?
Simon Archer (Goldblatt Partners LL.P.); Kevin Skerrett (Carleton); Tom Fraser (indep.); Patricia Galvao Ferreira (Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie).
15:00 Coffee
15:15 PANEL 7 (Author-Meets-Readers): Tom Fraser鈥檚 Invested in Crisis: Public Sector Pensions Against the Future (Between the Lines, 2025)
Tom Fraser (Carleton); Priya Gupta (黑料不打烊).
16:45 Conclusion / Next Steps (Papers, Jr Faculty Forum, next Network Conference)
17:30 Conference Dinner II (Le Taj, 2077 Stanley St, Montreal, Quebec H3A 1R7)