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Author	Asst Prof Roza Nurgozhayeva
Organisation/Institution	Nazarbayev University
Country	KAZAKHSTAN
Panel	Corporate Law and Governance
Title	From Brussels to Bangkok: Strategic Adaptation of the CSDDD in a Multipolar Corporate Governance Order
Abstract	Geopolitics has always influenced corporate law, but it has now become a first-order force in corporate governance as the Anglo-American-cum-global order unravels under intensifying geopolitical rivalry. Major powers—the United States, the European Union, and China—are advancing sharply divergent views of corporate purpose and the corporation’s role in society. The expectation of global convergence that once guided debates in corporate law has therefore given way to regionalization, where competing regulatory hubs promote rival corporate governance models and contest their reach. States caught between these paradigms increasingly pursue selective alignment that maximizes domestic political and economic advantage. Thailand’s recent experience illustrates this logic with exceptional clarity. In 2024–25, Thailand produced the draft due diligence law modeled directly on the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, marking the first such attempt to transpose the CSDDD beyond the EU. As political uncertainty within Europe slowed the CSDDD, Thai officials questioned the logic of advancing an instrument whose future within the EU itself had become unsettled. The narrative shifted from “EU alignment” to “OECD readiness,” recasting mandatory due diligence as part of Thailand’s long-term accession ambitions rather than an externally imposed European standard. This reframing reduced political sensitivity and aligned the initiative with national strategic goals, revealing a pragmatic motivation to advance the OECD accession bid rather than adopt the EU vision of corporate purpose. If adopted, a bold effort by the EU to extend its Brussels-Effect influence could produce an emerging “Bangkok Effect”: a potential force multiplier that would extend the Thai CSDDD-style regime beyond the EU CSDDD’s narrowed scope. Thailand’s experience shows how corporate governance norms now travel through geopolitical competition rather than convergence. It also demonstrates that regionalization does not produce uniform adoption but strategic adaptation, through which states position themselves within an increasingly fractured corporate governance landscape.
Biography	Dr. Roza Nurgozhayeva is an Assistant Professor of Business Law at Nazarbayev University Graduate School of Business in Kazakhstan. From 2018 to 2020, she held a postdoctoral fellowship at the National University of Singapore’s Faculty of Law and its Center for Asian Legal Studies. Dr. Roza earned both her LLM and J.S.D. degrees from Cornell University. Her research interests include comparative corporate law, corporate governance, sustainable development, state-owned enterprises, and legal systems of Eurasia. She has presented her research at Duke, Cornell, the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, the University of New South Wales, the University of Melbourne, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Singapore Management University, and the National University of Singapore. Her work has been featured by The Diplomat, Nikkei Asia, the Oxford Business Law Blog, the European Corporate Governance Institute, and the Harvard Law School Corporate Governance Forum. She is an author of book chapters and research articles published in environmental and comparative law journals, including the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law and the Chinese Journal of Comparative Law.