Corporations as Semi-States

JAY BUTLER*

When Ebola came to West Africa in 2014, Liberia could not cope. The State’s already fragile public health infrastructure was largely ineffective in responding to the illness and preventing its spread. And, the World Health Organization’s support was slow and stilted. By contrast, Firestone, a tire company that operates a vast rubber plantation in Liberia and runs its own hospital for 80,000 employees, family dependents, and persons in neighboring localities, responded to the virus much more effectively.

This Article uses Firestone’s Ebola response as an en- try point to study a phenomenon too frequently over- looked. Many for-profit firms that maintain operations in failed and fragile States discharge significant quasi-governmental functions. They provide security, housing, food, water, transportation, infrastructure, and healthcare. And, they undertake such tasks not only for their employees but, sometimes, these businesses also reach beyond their own private domain to respond to challenges impacting the local community. Yet, legal scholarship on failed and fragile States largely ignores the provision of public goods by these business entities.

* Assistant Professor of Law, William & Mary Law School. I wish to thank Kevin Davis, Jide Nzelibe, Jack Goldsmith, Guy-Uriel Charles, Lea Brilmayer, Tendayi Achiume, Matiangai Sirleaf, Rachel Brewster, Ajay Mehrotra, Angela Banks, Nancy Combs, Evan Criddle, Tara Grove, Adam Gershowitz, Daniel Abebe, and participants at the Jerome M. Culp Colloquium at Stanford Law School, the William & Mary International Law Roundtable, the Boston College Law School Faculty Workshop, and the American University Washington College of Law Faculty Workshop. Mindy Gee and Peter Quinn- Jacobs provided excellent research assistance. All errors are my own.