Professor Kish Parella Publishes “Corporate Foreign Policy in War” in the Boston College Law Review The article examines how corporations are affecting foreign policy by using economic means to reward or punish countries involved in conflict.

By Law Communications
January 8, 2024

Washington and Lee law professor Kish Parella has published an article in the Boston College Law Review. The article, “Corporate Foreign Policy in War,” examines how corporations are affecting foreign policy by using economic means to reward or punish countries involved in conflict, including military conflicts such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Companies assisted Ukraine by donating millions of dollars to relief organizations or offering aid directly to those fleeing the war. Other companies punished Russia by closing stores, postponing investments, and exiting the country altogether. This article explains that these individual business decisions illustrate a broader phenomenon of corporate foreign policy, which refers to business policies that use the traditional tools of national foreign policy to influence a government’s conduct towards another government or international organization,” writes Professor Parella.

Professor Parella presented her research on corporate foreign policy to the Council on Foreign Relations, the Leadership, Democracy and National Security Lab at ASU Barrett and O’Connor Washington Center, the 2023 Berkeley Forum on Corporate Governance and at the “Regulating Conflict and Competition: The Economic Levers of National Security” conference at University of Virginia School of Law.  The paper was also selected for presentation at AALS Annual Meeting, International Human Rights Section in 2023.

The article is available online at the Boston College Law Review website.

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