Corporate Authority over Public Matters:
US-American Oil Companies and transnational legal ordering in Ecuador
This PhD Project by Michael Bader explores the ways in which global corporations could be said to assert public authority and co-create relations of law in their expansion toward the Third World. The story begins amidst the globalisation of the US-American oil industry after the First World War and narrows in on the trajectory of one global corporation, the US-American oil giant Texaco and its travel to Ecuador in the 1960s. By carefully investigating Texaco’s arrival and subsequent conduct in Ecuador, the thesis analyses the extent and mode of corporate authority over land and life in the Oriente Basin and beyond.