A Comparative Legal Analysis of Soft-Law Discursive Governance in International Trade and Corporate Sustainability Commitments

• Sunday Sunday

  Ladoke Akintola University of Technology

  Author

Soft-law instruments have become pervasive in both international trade regulation and corporate sustainability governance, yet their discursive mechanisms remain undertheorized as a comparative legal phenomenon. This study addresses the gap in understanding how soft-law discourse functions as a governance technology across these two distinct institutional domains. Drawing on a mixed-methods comparative legal methodology combining doctrinal analysis of WTO soft-law instruments and corporate sustainability disclosures, the research develops a performative framework for assessing discursive governance efficacy. The analysis reveals that soft-law discursive governance operates through three analogous mechanisms across both domains: reputational exposure, interpretive guidance, and institutional learning, with the corporate sustainability context demonstrating an 89.4% concordance rate between specific discursive commitments and subsequent disclosure alignment. The study concludes that soft-law's governance force derives not from enforcement but from the discursive costs it imposes on actors who make public commitments. Implications extend to treaty interpretation, corporate compliance strategy, and the design of transnational regulatory mixes.

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