Zumbansen 2012 Defining Space of Transnational Law TLCP
Zumbansen 2012 Defining Space of Transnational Law TLCP
Zumbansen 2012 Defining Space of Transnational Law TLCP
Article
Copyright (c) 2012 Transnational Law and Contemporary Problems, University of Iowa College of Law; Peer Zumbansen
I. Introduction
In an era of dramatic globalization, legal inquiries into the future of law often result in accounts of
law's alleged weakness to extend beyond national jurisdictions. At the same time, lawyers are certainly not
the only scholars reflecting on today's regulatory challenges often summarized under the heading of,
“global governance.” An investigation into the nature and scope of legal regulation in this context un-
avoidably exposes questions of origin and function on one hand, and of relations, compatibility, and in-
terdisciplinary aspects on the other. In this often polemic and heated discourse of disciplines and narra-
tives, an effort to reconstruct a discipline's approach and methodology offers insights into the trajectories
and characteristics of the problems at stake for that discipline, in an increasingly fragmented, highly
asymmetric global arena.
With these considerations in mind, the following article takes seriously the concerns among interna-
tional lawyers about “legal fragmentation,” [FN1] if *306 only to contrast and to compare them with the
evolution of law at the state level. Such mirroring offers a respite in what has otherwise too quickly been
offered as a swan song about law's fading light and impact under the duress of globalization. [FN2]
Drawing out the analogies between legal sociological insights from the late 19th and early 20th Century
into pluralistic legal systems, and today's lament about the law's loss of unity in the global context, we can
take a better look at the ambivalent nature and role of law itself in an evolving transnational regulatory
landscape. What emerges through this lens is that our analytical focus ought not to be how law performs in
the context of globalization, but how we theorize the relation between law and society. In other words, the
advent of globalization prompts an investigation into the theory(ies) of society which inform(s) our--and
competing--understandings of law.
A powerful illustration of this nexus is provided by the current debate on global constitutionalism and
the complementary constitutionalization of international law. [FN3] Running through the majority of
analyses in this context is the contention that the absence of a world government radicalizes the gover-
nance dilemma facing modern societies. Accordingly, this invites reflections on the way in which the
improvement of participatory elements can strengthen the democratic foundations of global governance
institutions on the one hand, [FN4] while the gradual acceptance of core human rights values may even-
tually foster the emergence of a global set of values on the other. [FN5] Such contentions, however, seem
to remain surprisingly isolated from legal theory and governance discourses that have long been pursued
within the *307 framework of the nation-state. The separate tracks of inquiry in this case--one focusing on
the future of law and law's fragmentation in an era of globalization, and the other concerned with the
transformation of law in the context of radically transformed statehood [FN6]--prevent us from taking a
closer look at the ways in which law has changed over time. Certainly, scholars in law, political science, or
sociology have long been interested in the connections between the evolution of state institutions and the
development of a global political economy. [FN7] However, inquiries focusing on the entanglements
between political and legal institutions on the one hand, and on the myriad forms of “state-market” rela-
tions from a political economy perspective on the other, [FN8] are too rarely included in current conten-
tions about global “legal fragmentation.” As a result, the challenges of global governance are addressed
with too little connection to ongoing attempts to trace their origins in, or their connections with, prior
governance discourses through which modern societies have long been described. In this article, I propose
to describe the perspective between national and global governance challenges as “transnational” in order
to offer a bridge between these separately pursued research agendas. Going beyond early work in inter-
national legal theory [FN9] and partly drawing on the insights from transnational commercial law, [FN10]
we can begin to understand transnational law primarily as a methodological approach and less as a dis-
tinctly demarcated legal field, such as contract or administrative law. Transnational law, from this pers-
pective, [FN11] emerges foremost as a methodological lens through which we can study the particular
transformation of legal institutions in the context of an evolving complex society. The contention that
society works as the other side of the state runs *308 deep within the continental legal imagination.
[FN12] As we relativize this contention, we recognize the need to define society as such, rather than
merely assuming it as a given background, against which we may freely theorize about the future of the
law. [FN13]
The sociology of law and, more specifically, the work on “legal pluralism,”--promulgated by scholars
such as Eugen Ehrlich [FN14] or Georges Gurvitch [FN15] and later built upon in works by Sally Falk
Moore, [FN16] John Griffiths, [FN17] Sally Merry, [FN18] Gunther Teubner [FN19] or Boaventura de
Sousa Santos [FN20]--provides a powerful pathway towards a transnational legal methodology. This
pathway traces the emergence of legal regulatory institutions in the context of an evolving society--on the
national and the international level. Focusing on the coexistence and competition between hard and soft,
official and unofficial, public and private norms, this Article's proposed approach--labelled transnational
legal pluralism--suggests studying law from a methodological angle in the context of evolving theories of
societal ordering, rather than as a contained discipline. Central to this undertaking is a shift in perspective,
which leads to a focus on actors, norms, and processes as building blocks of a methodology of transna-
tional law. [FN21]
This approach suggests a relativization of a number of assumptions commonly associated with law.
One assumption is its territorial connection with a politically institutionalized system of rule creation,
implementation, and adjudication; which in Europe has, for a relatively long time, been framed as the
state-law nexus. From a transnational perspective, this nexus *309 becomes questionable in a global
context, but also in Europe itself the legal sociological lens reveals an impressive array of non-state ori-
ginating norms that have long held influence over both individual and organizational behavior. [FN22]
This observation has prompted sociologists to perceive law primarily from a functional perspective,
emphasizing its particular operation in the context of a differentiated modern society. [FN23] From the
vantage point of this theory, society is no longer validly represented as a sphere defined primarily in
contrast from the state. Rather, in a society “without peak or centre,” some scholars have been describing
law as but one of several societal forms of communication, unfolding according to its own rationality and
by use of its own particular vocabulary (“code”). [FN24]
Even if one does not go so far as to reduce law to a particular form of societal communication, the
contention of a specific nexus between law and a theory of society--in which law emerges and oper-
ates--promises to render insights into the evolving forms of law. These insights appear to be more ade-
quate in depicting the particular quality of law today than the ambivalent attempts to reconcile the as-
sumption of a strong state-law nexus with the proliferation of numerous, non-state based, rule generating
processes and institutions.
Beyond the relativization of the law versus non-law distinction, which is inherent to the legal socio-
logical versus legal pluralist approach to legal regulation, there is the other significant challenge arising
out of this approach: the relativization of a territorial grounding of law in a particular jurisdiction. As we
study law in its societal context, the confines of society can no longer adequately be drawn with reference
to specific states, nations, or regions; instead, one must view society as a world society. [FN25] Within
this world society, the study of law (and of regulatory governance more generally) refers to “territory,”
“jurisdiction,” or the “state” in order to appreciate specific, historically grown or politically constituted,
frameworks of legal evolution at a particular time and place--no more and no less. The “no less” deserves
particular emphasis today, where scholars frequently make assertions of a *310 de-territorialized [FN26]
or “autonomous” legal order. [FN27] From this suggested methodological perspective, such assertions are
of lesser interest with regard to their explanatory value than as to their motives. To unpack the claims of
regulatory governance that have an increasingly de-territorialized or autonomous nature, it is necessary,
on the one hand, to revisit the arguments of some scholars who connect the claim of an “exhaustion” of
law and of the nation state's regulatory power with an emphasis on social norms. [FN28] On the other
hand, we need to study the arguments of scholars who describe transnational law as grounded in what they
refer to as global legal pluralism. [FN29] As this Article will explain, both groups of scholars emphasize
the limits of traditional legal regulation and question whether the state-law nexus captures the dynamics of
regulatory governance today. A closer look at the arguments, however, appears to reveal that the shared
interest in a legal pluralist description of governance originates from differing political standpoints. The
scholars who argue that the state is increasingly reaching its regulatory capacity view such arguments as
driven by a rejection of so-called “interventionist” state policy. This type of policy is reminiscent of
discussions regarding the U.S. Supreme Court's Lochner jurisprudence. [FN30] By contrast, scholars in
legal sociology and legal theory, who have a strong interest in questions of access to justice and the
problem of the legal system's closeted nature to wide sections of society, have mobilized a limits-of-law
critique from an opposed political perspective. [FN31] Given the evolving forms of regulatory institu-
tions, the “availability” of legal pluralist thinking to different, even juxtaposed, political projects [FN32]
forms a crucial background to *311 today's assertions about the nature and aspiration of law in a global
context. [FN33]
On that basis, it becomes possible to read the currently dominant narrative of the autonomization of
law, or of an end of (state-based) law in an era of globalization, in a different light. Rather than describing
the advent of globalization as an end-point of legal development, a transnational perspective requires one
to deconstruct the various law-state associations. This allows a better understanding of the evolution of
law in relation to--as well as in response to--the development of what must be described as “world so-
ciety.” The currently lamented lack of democratic accountability, for example, in international economic
governance, [FN34] can then be perceived as a further development in a highly differentiated and
de-territorialized society. This Article rejects the attempts by lawyers to re-align transnational governance
actors with traditional concepts of the state or a territoriality bounded civil society and instead contrasts
them with various advances in sociology and anthropology with regard to the evolution of social norms
and “spaces” of governance and regulation. Such spaces are always more than geographical realms, as
they are constituted, discursive and symbolic spaces. They are open to being unpacked through an em-
pirically informed engagement with the scales on which local and „global‟ governance processes as well
as the differences between legal and non-legal forms of social ordering are being demarcated. [FN35]
These perspectives effectively challenge present attempts to conceptualize a hierarchically structured
global legal order while they question the association of legal rule creation with a territorially fixed place.
As such, this Article's proposed concept of “transnational legal pluralism” (“TLP”) goes beyond Philip
Jessup's 1956 idea of transnational law, through which he sought to complement and challenge Public and
Private International Law; [FN36] TLP brings together insights from legal sociology and legal theory with
research on global justice, ethics, and regulatory governance to illustrate the transnational nature of law
and regulation, as well as constantly challenges the various claims to legal unity and hierarchy made over
time.
*312 The remainder of this Article is structured as follows: section II revisits the legal pluralist in-
sights into the tension between law and non-law. Against this background, this Article will trace the
emergence of border-crossing regulatory regimes as a challenge to state-oriented legal reasoning in sec-
tion III. It illustrates the parallels between the impasses of legal theorizing about global or transnational
governance with those that marked the evolution of law in the nation state. Section IV revisits the fre-
quently asked question of whether globalization marks the end of law. Attempting a negative answer, this
section proposes to read the emergence of transnational law not as the advent of a new field--similar to the
way that environmental law or Internet law were considered as new legal fields only relatively recently.
Instead, the central assumption is that transnational law constitutes a methodological shift in legal
theory--an attempt to bridge the experience of legal pluralism in the nation-state with that of the emerging
transnational space. Section V pursues this argument and applies it to the initial paradox between law and
non-law. Transnational law can now be understood as a lens through which to perceive the argumentative
parallels between the impasses, roadblocks, and impossibilities of law that recur, both inside and outside
of the nation-state. As the borders of the state are reconstructed as historically contingent reference points
for the evolution of legal reasoning, transnational law becomes the legal theoretical engagement with the
law/non-law distinction in (world) society. The concluding section, section VI, sets out the framework of
transnational legal pluralism.
II. The Anxieties of Global Governance and the Ambivalent Nature of Law
Today, many regulatory areas are examples of transnational norm-creation. Supply chains that con-
nect regional and global markets [FN37], commercial arbitration, [FN38] food safety and food quality
standardization regimes, [FN39] as well as internet governance, [FN40] but also environmental *313
protection, [FN41] crime, [FN42] and terrorism [FN43]--are key examples of increasingly expanding
spaces of individual, organizational, and regulatory activity that evolve with little regard for jurisdictional
boundaries. The denationalization of norm production in these areas with such far-reaching impact on the
affected segments of society raise pressing questions regarding agency, representation and participation.
These have to be seen as elements of an evolving transnational order, which we observe as much as help
construct. Through the application of concepts such as legitimacy, rule of law or, constitutionalism to
unpack the nature of this evolving order, scholars engage in bridging and translation efforts between
domestic experiences with law and governance and the stark unruliness and incoherence of global go-
vernance patterns today. It is of little surprise then, that conceptual work such as that of Karl Polanyi is
being revisited today in search of a better understanding of the unravelling of frameworks of so-
cio-political and economic dynamics. [FN44]
But, a focus on „embeddedness' can only partially capture the dynamics of scale which characterize
transnational regulatory governance today. This can be illustrated by looking at a number of other fields
such as company, insolvency, and even labor law that have long been understood as embedded in his-
torically evolved political and regulatory economies. [FN45] Today, these *314 fields display a distinctly
transnational character. [FN46] Constituted through a complex overlapping of different national, inter-
national, public, and private norm-creation processes, these fields underscore the conundrum of the pro-
liferating global regulatory space. In response, state-based categorizations such as the hierarchy of norms,
the idea of a separation of powers, or of a “unity of law” [FN47] continue to fall short of grasping the
nature of the evolving transnational normative order. [FN48] Yet, the transnational scale of regulatory
fields is in itself the result of a construction. Understood by lawyers foremost as areas of legal regulation
with a particular, associated set of functionalities, addressees and remedies, distinctions between different
legal fields can also be understood as cartographic demarcations of domains of social order and of social
meaning. In other words, legal fields capture contested claims to sovereignty. This constitutive dimension
of distinguishing between various legal fields becomes strikingly apparent in areas that are characterized
by an intentional pulling apart of different parts of the regulated object and their respective association
with a distinct legal regulatory apparatus and rationality. An impressive example of such a fragmentation
of the regulated social unit can be identified through the lens of corporate or, company law, where rela-
tions between investors and management are considered to be at the core of the legal field, while relations
between the company and its employees are considered to be lying outside of the purview of corporate
law. As a result, different aspects, different dimensions of the corporation are captured through particular
functionalist lenses. As we will see, this fragmentation of social reality and its reconstitution through
different mappings as legal fields unfolds in a radical way in the transnational space.
*315 One can sense a certain sense of urgency [FN49] in the current search for appropriate labels,
concepts, and instruments for this regulatory space today. Lawyers have long been forming alliances with
scholars in a wide range of social sciences including: sociology, political science, economics, and geo-
graphy. Such interdisciplinary collaboration in practice and methodology is anything but new to law and
legal theory. But, the decisive quality of interdisciplinary research on global governance today is an in-
creasingly articulate interest in drawing lessons of such interdisciplinary collaboration. Building on in-
sights by social scientists that emphasize the importance of social facts and empirical findings, [FN50] the
study of law has, for the longest time, been carried out in close proximity and in the constant shadow of
social studies. [FN51] The previously mentioned sociology-based legal projects from the end of the 19th
and the beginning of the 20th Century can be seen today as eminent precursors to an intensifying study
into the institutional foundations of legal systems: a constellation of systems marked by the erosion of
boundaries between domestic legal orders and the continuing contestation of the normative-conceptual
foundations, but also the practice of the “rule of law” [FN52], the social and the welfare state, and their
ambiguous promises, legacies and aftermaths. [FN53] The Legal Realist attack on formalism, [FN54] the
Post War natural law/legal positivism debate, [FN55] the emergence of legal pluralism *316 in the wake
of post-colonialism, [FN56] and the rise of “law & society”--both from the left [FN57] and the right
[FN58]--as well as the critique of juridification [FN59] today yield to a cacophonic contestation of the
merits and limits of law's knowledge and its evolving nature and role. [FN60]
Seen in this light, the search for the nature of law has always been carried out with the pretentious
assumption that it is or must be--that law, in the end, can be--different from religion, morality, and eco-
nomics. But the 20th Century has left the emerging body of law battered and torn, scarred and violated.
[FN61] In turn, our attempts to rehabilitate it risk being either naïve or incredulously courageous, as the
definition of law has become elusive. Should law be understood as a means of oppression, corruption, and
domination; or as an instrument of hope, liberation, and emancipation? Can we recognize and understand
law only from its existence within a particular institutional setting, or do we see law by its function in
society? [FN62] Its multifaceted and fragile constitution has been associated with its paradoxical foun-
dation [FN63] and creation out of an act of violence. [FN64]
Roger Cotterrell remarked in this context that the difficulty of answering these questions has to be
seen against the background of a blurring of *317 boundaries between law and society. [FN65] Law,
Cotterrell wrote, “constitutes society in so far as it is, itself, an aspect of society, a framework and an
expression of understandings that enable society to exist. A sociological perspective on legal ideas is
necessary to recognise and analyse the intellectual and moral power of law in this respect.” [FN66] Un-
derstanding law this way--as a social phenomenon [FN67]--blurs the distinction between law and society:
the internal/external distinction is “replaced by a conception of partial, relatively narrow or specialised,
participant perspectives on (and in) law, confronting and being confronted by, penetrating, illuminating,
and being penetrated and illuminated by, broader, more inclusive perspectives on (and in) law as a social
phenomenon.” [FN68] Such a perspective on law must be understood as an attempt to respond to law's
own alleged lack of methodology: “Law does not have a „methodology of its own‟ and borrows metho-
dologies from any discipline that can supply them.” [FN69] A sociological analysis on legal ideas would
be to reflect “methodologically law's own fragmentary varied methodological characteristics.” [FN70]
Shifting our analytical focus beyond the boundaries of the nation-state that has been providing the
stage for the study of law in the recent past, [FN71] the proposed framework of transnational legal plu-
ralism [FN72] seeks to capture the methodological challenge arising for law and social theory to make
sense of the emerging transnational normative order. In situating this concept in dialogue with theoretical
approaches of transnational law, [FN73] transnational commercial law, [FN74] global law, [FN75] law
and globalization, [FN76] transnational spaces [FN77] *318 and communities, [FN78] global legal plu-
ralism, [FN79] hard versus soft law, [FN80] law and social norms, [FN81] or law as product, [FN82] these
parallel endeavors constantly relativize and challenge the conceptual boundaries of the approach pursued
in this Article.
Importantly, this trajectory of legal evolution can be studied as a process of law's transnationalization.
Despite its prima facie appearance as being relevant exclusively within the nation-state's framework of
legal ordering, *319 the above mentioned scholarly projects in legal sociology, legal theory and anthro-
pology, and political theory reflect the changing environment of legal systems. This transformation is
perceived foremost as one of eroding boundaries, boundaries between form and substance, [FN83] be-
tween public and private [FN84] (“states” and “markets” [FN85]), but at its core is concerned with the
contestation, deconstruction, and relativization of the boundaries between law and non-law. [FN86] At the
height of the regulatory state with its (perhaps primary?) belief in juridification, and in law, as social en-
gineering, [FN87] law today is often seen as having become irrelevant in the face of global challenges. It is
from this vantage point that the study of law must be rethought and reasserted as social science, as one
among other conceptual approaches to the study of modern societies. [FN88]
In the absence of world government, attempts to demarcate a legal system adequate to the
“post-national constellation” [FN89] primarily display a deep-running anxiety in the face of a perceived
lack of unity, coherence, and an institutional and normative hierarchy. [FN90] The procedural and subs-
tantive architectures of fast-emerging transnational regulatory regimes [FN91] raise *320 questions that
go to the heart of any legal theory. [FN92] Legal scholars have addressed these issues mostly through the
lens of the state. [FN93] These questions arise around the “politics of private law making,” [FN94] and, as
such, concern primarily the constitutional dimensions of private ordering: issues of accountability, legi-
timacy, and democratic control. [FN95] What makes these accountability and legitimacy issues--which
have in part been driving the important work in global administrative law [FN96]--particularly intriguing
is that they underscore the degree to which the evolving transnational regulatory regimes illustrate the
constitutionalization challenges facing the global legal order today. [FN97] As increasingly specialized,
functionally differentiated problem areas and spheres of human and institutional conduct evolve in re-
sponse to a combination of external impulses and their own *321 particular logic, [FN98] the law go-
verning these constellations becomes deeply entwined in these complex, layered constitutions. [FN99]
Where does this definition of law leave us? Obviously, law's proximity to self-destruction became ap-
parent long before globalization, was in fact always part of law's constitution. [FN100] Globalization,
understood differently, thus provides a label depicting another stage of reflection on the relationship
between law and its Other. The law's predominant institutionalization in the state during the 19th and 20th
Centuries casts a long shadow over our present attempts to imagine law as embodying a particular form of
ordering rationality. The challenge of law after, and in the shadow of the 20th Century welfare state, lies in
its functional diffusion and normative evaporation. This temporalization (“after”) indicates a shift of pa-
radigm, a conclusion and abdication of a dominant concept, rather than a historical development of a
series of institutional frameworks that comprehensively replace preceding models of the state and modes
of legal thinking. [FN101]
When referring to “global governance,” scholars often associate a dramatic disembedding of law and
its institutional architecture. [FN102] But, the relative loss of a reliable and comprehensive legal infra-
structure accompanies an increasingly intense debate around an evolving global legal consciousness, in
particular with regard to human rights. [FN103] Global governance further opened the windows to a world
beyond--one of injustice, unequal distribution, and grave rights abuses; [FN104] a claim, however,
fiercely contested *322 from scholars and practitioners on the ground. [FN105] As illustrated, for exam-
ple, in the continued interest in the constitutionalization of international law, [FN106] the question
whether there is any pervasive role for law in a globalised world remains at the core of the present en-
gagement with global governance issues. As suggested above, the complexity inherent to the differentia-
tion of law and non-law in regulatory governance and for which the evolution of modern states give ample
illustration, is further exacerbated in the global context. This means that a crisis, or exhaustion, of law
cannot be depicted as a consequence of globalization, but as an inherent feature of law's evolution in its
relation to society.
To reiterate the central thesis of this Article: the alleged crisis of law and legal regulation, whether
depicted as a loss of state sovereignty or as a problem of lacking democratic and political accountability
[FN107] and legitimacy [FN108] in the global context, has to be understood as a particular amplification
of a problem with law that has long been coming. In that respect, many of our present concerns about the
fate of law in relation to a continuing transformation of the state and the related changes to models of
democracy and issues of legitimacy and accountability [FN109] must be assessed against the background
of a reconstruction of legal evolution in the national and local context. Without suggesting that the legi-
timacy and regulatory challenges connected with the amorphous concept of global governance [FN110]
are *323 exact mirror reflections of locally experienced moments of exhaustion, [FN111] there is a par-
ticular role to be played by local, domestic regulatory experiences for the conceptualization of global
governance regimes. The role of law occupies a particularly challenging place in this inquiry, particularly
because the rise of globalization is so often associated, if not with the demise of law, [FN112] then with an
immense pressure on law and legal institutions.
A study of law in the context of evolving global governance debates, then, prompts parallel efforts of
introspection (say, regarding the definition and the function of law) and of demarcation (for example,
regarding the different qualities between legal, political, and economic governance). Such efforts, how-
ever, are being pursued against the background of a still-tentative description of the transnational regu-
latory landscape. From the perspective of comparative law there is much to learn from studying law
against the background of a particular, national, historical context. [FN113] However, the transnational
dimension challenges the tendency in comparative law to study distinct legal cultures. [FN114] Much
research suggests that the particular nature of the transnational arena defeats our attempts at understanding
the relation between the national and the post-national constellation [FN115] as a linear one, *324 either
on a chronological or a systematic level. [FN116] But, at the same time, the evolving transnational nature
of regulatory regimes as, for example, in labor [FN117] or corporate law, [FN118] mentioned earlier,
presents itself not as an opposition or negation, but as a challenge to reassert the place and role of law.
Reconceiving law as transnational suggests that domestic experiences with law are crucial points of
orientation. Yet, they cannot provide reliable frameworks of institutional or normative design, which we
could simply employ and transpose into the transnational arena. Instead, this approach must point towards
two investigative strands. One is that the inquiry into the evolution and, eventually, the so-called crisis of
law as regulation of social activity, has to attempt the reconstruction as an ironic project that is concerned
with the meaning and aspiration of law over time and space. [FN119] This constellation can be grasped as
the relation or tension between law and non-law, between legality and legitimacy, between law and jus-
tice, society, or other. [FN120] The reconstruction of local (e.g., national) experiences with law as con-
stantly challenged by its opposite or its foundations, embeddedness, or contestations forms one strand of
the following inquiry. [FN121]
The second investigative strand is to return to the original point of our reflections on how globaliza-
tion can be said to prompt a renewed reflection on the particular nature of legal regulation. In this di-
mension we are concerned with the task of adequately recognizing the gap between the particular context
in which norms and normative environments have evolved locally, and the emerging, allegedly unruly
spaces of normative order on the global level. Against this background, the methodological dimension of
transnational law reasserts itself. Approaching transnational law from a methodological perspective
should help us from too quickly depicting the “transnational” as a distinct regulatory space, which would
differ from the national and the international due to its de-territorial scope and its hybrid, *325 pub-
lic-private constitution. Instead, as alluded to already, transnational law emerges as a particular perspec-
tive on law as part of a society that itself cannot sufficiently be captured by reference to national or
de-nationalized boundaries. The transnational dimension does not arise with respect to territorial or ju-
risdictional confines, but from a reconstruction of the forms and functions of law deep within highly
specialized areas of societal activity.
While this uncoupling of social systems from a state-associated framework of the political, economic,
and legal order certainly presents a dramatic challenge to state-based theories of law, its real gist lies
elsewhere. The uneasy relationship between national society and world society should not be seen as a
threat, but as an element which is inherent to the constitution of legal spaces. From this perspective,
transnational refers to the “other” of the law, which challenges, but simultaneously recognizes, its local-
ly-learned relations to concrete structures of embeddedness and particular experiences of historical evo-
lution and contextual differentiation. [FN122] Inspired by the analysis that was offered by the sociologist
Saskia Sassen, [FN123] we can now posit that transnational law can be perceived as a way of questioning
and reconstructing the project of law between places and spaces precisely because it helps to relativize
law's association with particular institutional frameworks. [FN124] At the same time, the tension between
law's grounding in concrete geographical and historical places and its evolution in spatial terms [FN125]
warrants a careful look at the evolving relation between law, critique, and politics. [FN126]
This look back at “places” reveals intriguing parallels between current global governance concerns
and older debates about the effectiveness of legal *326 regulation in complex societies. [FN127] Clearly,
the hybridity of regulatory instruments that many global governance scholars observe today was a
well-known feature of legal regulation as studied by legal sociologists and legal pluralists decades ago. In
that regard, Sally Moore's analysis of law as being constituted in part by social norms, routines, customs,
and practices and, at the same time, by hard legal regulation, proved of vital importance in opening our
eyes to the intricate relations between the regulator and concrete, local, intimate social spaces. [FN128]
Foreshadowing later calls for recognition of the regulatory powers of social norms, [FN129] scholars
disenchanted with rights-based interventionism called for extralegal activism [FN130] and
de-legalization. [FN131] Meanwhile, this analysis has received further accentuation through the critical
rejection of the assertion of pre-colonial „customary‟ and traditional' law. [FN132]
On both sides of the Atlantic, the responses to the financially and normatively exhausted welfare state
[FN133] soon split into progressive [FN134] and conservative [FN135] camps. These alternative pers-
pectives provide the context for today's academic and political proposals following the 2008 financial
crisis, and the law's role in global governance more generally. During the late 1970s and early 1980s,
when social-democratic policy faltered and scepticism toward Keynesian economics increased, a fairly
ambitious theoretical proposal was made that aimed at resituating law into a more accentuated model of
society. [FN136] In this model, which did not lend itself to a straightforward ideological appropriation,
society is composed of intersecting, but separated communications that are each constituted by a distinct
terminology. Law was to be understood as one of these social systems along with economy, politics, re-
ligion, or art. [FN137] On the basis of this position, the concept of reflexive law was proposed as a form of
law that stressed a crucial *327 exposure and immersion into its surrounding systems while it remained
operationally closed. [FN138]
Due to its cognitive openness, however, law must constantly receive impulses, “irritations” and, re-
lying on its autopoetic nature, formulate legal responses, i.e., continue its systematic operation. In the face
of the weakening welfare state and the growing frustration with ineffective, un-democratic,
over-generalizing, and paternalistic regulatory laws, the concept of reflexive law was offered to explain
the particular challenge and form of legal regulation in a complex world. [FN139] Its controversial core
consisted of understanding law as being taken out of a learned institutional context made up of official
institutions authoritatively creating state-originating laws and, instead, forced to reassert itself in highly
diversified complex environments. This radicalization of law's functional orientation constitutes a new
stage in the assessment of law's institutional form, as it has been learned over time. Whereas the general
public today associates law most often with the state, the legal sociological work at the turn of the century,
as well as the legal pluralist work during the 1960s and 1970s, had long questioned this tight coupling of
law with the state.
Yet, the exuberant turn away from the state and to the market at the end of the 20th Century can be
seen as smartly employing the very methodological orientations that had informed the reconstructive legal
projects in the face of a financially and normatively exhausted welfare state in the 1980s. [FN140] The
fragile reconstructions of law through the concepts of responsive or reflexive law on both sides of the
Atlantic eventually fed into a large-scale rejection of state intervention throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
[FN141] The politically progressive scholars in the 1970s and 1980s turned to alternative modes of legal
regulation seeking to translate law's generality into contextual, learning forms of socio-legal regulation.
[FN142] Their hope had been to save the political ambitions of the welfare state while continuing the
socio-political debate over the substance and direction of political intervention. [FN143] In contrast, to-
day's neo-formalism and neo-functionalism threatens to cut the ties between the current quest to answer
the challenges of globalization and the previous struggles over law and politics. [FN144] Its proponents
characterize legal regulation as inappropriately policy-driven and *328 as undue infringement on the
societal actors' capacity to regulate their own affairs autonomously. [FN145]
In the clout of neo-formalism and neo-functionalism, which has largely characterized legal policy in
recent years, a heavy reliance on arguments of necessity, objectivity, and naturalness came to prepare the
ground for a functionalist interpretation and application of legal norms in politically-charged contexts
experiencing fundamental shifts from public to private regulation. The attack on contract adjudication and
governmental intervention that accompanied these developments and regularly depicted a market as
originally existing without politics, without government regulation. [FN146] This depiction of the market
and the state as separate worlds formed troubling alliances with policy recommendations, promoting the
privatization of public services that were often fueled by arguments over efficiency and cost reduction.
[FN147] Yet, whether, and in which forms, private actors assume formerly public regulatory functions
represents the outcome of political choices and of other socio-economic developments that are unfolding
at both the national and transnational level. [FN148] The alleged available fresh start for societal
self-regulation without state interference--at least as it was widely perceived until the fall of 2008--stood
in stark contrast to the observation already made decades ago that when market actors are enabled and
empowered to exercise their private autonomy, they are exercising this freedom based on public delibe-
ration and consensus. [FN149]
While there is considerable reason to believe that we have entered a stage in the assessment of state
and market where we have to carefully turn our attention again to the long and winded history of this
relationship, [FN150] identifying a starting point is far from obvious. [FN151] As the treacherous *329
denationalization [FN152] of regulatory areas continues to pose tremendous conceptual problems for
state-based theories of law, we must aim at combining our methodological inquiry into the nature of
transnational law with a bold reconstruction of critical perspectives. Out of that combination we can then
discuss the need for stronger, more efficient, or more thorough regulation, a discussion that is critically
important today in the face of what continues to unfold as a dramatic financial and economic crisis.
Concrete examples of spatial regulatory regimes amply illustrate the ambivalent politics of the shift
between national and transnational perspectives. We identify those regulatory regimes, which originate
from a combination of institutional and normative formation, that transcend jurisdictional borders and
combine national and international, public and private actors. [FN153] This is apparent, for example, in
the case of corporate governance regulation; as we continue to study corporate governance norms through
nationally-oriented textbooks and case law, we soon learn how the rules and instruments we are dealing
with are products of a far-reaching, fundamental transformation of previously jurisdictionally defined
regulatory landscapes. [FN154] As a complex mix of public, private, state- and non-state-based norms,
principles and rules, generated, disseminated, and monitored by a diverse set of actors [FN155] and ex-
perts, [FN156] shape corporate law, even the most casual look at today's corporate governance debates
reveals two important aspects. First, the analysis of contemporary corporate governance regulation can
help us become sensitive to the emerging framework within which corporate governance rules are
evolving--a framework which is constituted *330 by a combination of local and transnational actors and
norms connected through networks and migrating standards. [FN157]
The contested political dimensions and the high degree of technicality of the regulatory subjects of
transnational regulatory areas [FN158] present a formidable challenge to traditional regulatory theories of
law. [FN159] As alluded to above, it is this intricate combination of political ambivalence and technical
specialization of transnational regulation which prompts a renewed reflection on the relation between
regulatory law and differentiated areas of societal activity. Legal sociology and legal pluralism, in par-
ticular, have long been developing tools to scrutinize the tension between official and unofficial norm
creation, between hard and soft law, and between what at least in the West has often been depicted as a
juxtaposition of state law-making on the one hand and private ordering or social norms on the other. This
constellation prompted legal sociologists “to investigate the correlations between law and other spheres of
culture.” [FN160] Revisiting the legal pluralist work in the second half of the 20th Century provides a rich
background for contemporary assessments of hybrid legal spaces [FN161] that cannot sufficiently be
captured through references to local or national contexts. A distinctly transnational legal pluralist lens
allows us to study such regimes not as entirely detached from national political and legal orders, but as
emerging out of and reaching beyond them. The transnational dimension of hybrid regulatory actors and
newly emerging forms of norms radicalizes their semi-autonomous nature and we begin to conceive of
regulatory spaces as being marked by a dynamic tension between formal and informal norm-making
processes.
*331 But what about the politics of transnational regulation? [FN162] Again, an example taken from
the corporate law context may serve as an illustration: the much lamented regulatory failure of traditional
state-based legal-political intervention into multinational corporations [FN163] has long served as an
argument for the need to develop either distinctly national, institutionalized governance forms or to further
strengthen the grip of self-regulatory and soft instruments, which have only voluntary binding nature.
[FN164] Mirroring the complex, hard-to-navigate landscape of border-crossing corporate activity, the
proposed conceptual approaches vary greatly. Instead of pointing towards the creation of a coherent reg-
ulatory framework, theoretical proposals for transnational regulation range from ideas concerned with
world courts (global jurisdiction), [FN165] torture as tort, and transnational civil human rights litigation,
[FN166] to scandalization (global shaming) [FN167] and soft law instruments like self-binding norms,
codes of conduct, and best practices. [FN168]
These efforts illustrate the frustration with the lack of accountability, access to justice, and democratic
legitimacy of the evolving regulatory frameworks. [FN169] This frustration has become increasingly
accentuated in the context of a seemingly irreversible shift from government to governance [FN170] as
transnational governance regimes, fields such as corporate governance, labor law, [FN171] capital market
law, and consumer protection law [FN172] are increasingly *332 marked by the existence of opt-out
clauses and self-regulation mechanisms rather than being defined by enforceable hard-law rules. Mean-
while, it seems evident that a simple return to calls for more state interventionism is not a viable option in
light of the transnational nature of regulation today. Such a return is elusive, as the state can no longer be
depicted as the last safe haven, which statists, such as Carl Schmitt and his pupils in administrative law,
[FN173] often made it out to be. As Saskia Sassen recently reiterated, there is an intimate connection
between both the search for and the critique of law and the nation-state. [FN174] Her observation is par-
ticularly astute. As already highlighted, Sassen's work over the years [FN175] has greatly contributed to a
better understanding of how supposedly external and overwhelming processes of globalization actually
co-evolve within the nation-state. Rather than positing globalization as a process, event, or development
that imprisons nation-states, national economies, and domestic political processes, Sassen prompts us to
take a closer look at how the local is the dominant place of decision-making. [FN176] Yet, she doesn't
suggest a simple return to statism; instead, she suggests that there is a dynamic relation between locally
identifiable processes of institutional and normative formation, and the emergence of spatial regulatory
regimes. [FN177] It is through this relation that elements of physical and intellectual texture emerge to
produce border-crossing “global assemblages.” [FN178] These constitute distinct spheres that, famously
fuelled by the dramatic development of information technology, *333 integrate territorial and
de-territorial, vertical and horizontal ordering patterns to produce a structured regime of societal activities.
[FN179]
Meanwhile, continental public lawyers remain tempted to depict transnationalization processes pri-
marily as challenges to the reassertion of public authority [FN180] in a world of disaggregated state
power. [FN181] Similarly, European private lawyers continue to coyly attempt an escape from the reach
Against this background, Sassen's idea of global assemblages allows us to structure the sphere be-
tween the national and the international/transnational/global that has been plaguing legal imagination for
some time now. [FN189] Sassen's work reflects an unerring commitment to simultaneously emphasize
and relativize the national in the emerging cartography of a globalized world. This emphasis on national
systems, local decisions, and institutions that give rise to globalization processes has gone a long way in
allowing us to identify the concrete places where policies are prepared, taken and implemented and later
become identified as phenomena of globalization. [FN190] This new understanding of the national basis
of globalization proceeds in relation to the well-known institutions, reference points, and established
procedures such as states, parliaments, administrative agencies, and, importantly, courts. These actors
have long structured the economic, political, and legal order and are now struggling to re-ascertain their
previously held roles and positions of power--but in a transnational context. [FN191] This relativization of
the local results in the discovery of a newly emerging spatial category; the focus on space promises to
more adequately capture the exhaustion of concretely localized places of legal and political regulation
from the perspective of the rise in importance of hybrid institutional structures and normative orders. This
constellation presents tremendous challenges to both an analytical and prescriptive framework that was
developed with reference to a more or less well-defined regulatory framework. The central challenge of
this move from place to space consists of developing an appropriate language with which to communicate
over the institutional and normative challenges in a world that cannot *335 effectively be governed
through domestic and domestically minded rules. In the emerging spaces of global societal activity, the
specifically legal perspective that informs our present inquiry is challenged by a multitude of contrasting
investigations into the form, nature, and quality of the global order. [FN192] Beyond the obvious need for
irony on the part of the lawyer in his or her quest to make sense of law in a globalizing world and to accept
the relativity of the legal perspective, lies, of course, the need to understand the continuing proliferation of
pluralist normative orders.
VI. Outlook
The study of transnational governance has produced important insights into the complex relations
between the emergence of hybrid institutions and the ambivalent, hard/soft norms produced in that con-
text. There can be no doubt that these analytical efforts will continue to be carried out through various
collaborations and exchanges between legal scholars, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists,
and geographers, to name just a few of the participating disciplines. The emergence of transnational reg-
ulatory theory, however, is not necessarily a straightforward or smooth process. Within each discipline
one must identify points of departure toward a new perspective or theoretical construct. The advent of
“governance” as an overarching term to capture the shift from state-based, nationally defined regulation to
transnational processes of norm creation and institutionalization contributes to a further in-
ter-disciplinarization of research, but it remains crucial to continue to unpack the meaning of this shift to
governance within different disciplines themselves. This article has hopefully offered a number of helpful
observations regarding the adaptation of legal scholarship and doctrine to the process of transnationali-
zation.
[FNa1]. This paper is based on the Keynote Address delivered at the occasion of the 20th Anniversary Celebration of the
University of Iowa College of Law's Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems in March 2011. It is a significantly revised
and expanded version of a chapter appearing in Beyond Territoriality. Legal Authority in an Age of Globalization (Günther
Handl, Joachim Zekoll and Peer Zumbansen eds., The Hague: Brill 2012) I am very grateful to the journal editors and to Dean
Agrawal and Professor Somek at the College of Law for the honoring invitation. The article draws in small part from and builds
on my article, Transnational Legal Pluralism, 1Transnat'l Legal Theory 141 (2010).
[FNd1]. LL.B., Ph.D. (Law), Habilitation (Frankfurt); Licence en droit (Paris); LL.M. (Harvard). Professor of Law, Canada
Research Chair, Osgoode Hall Law School. Summer 2011, Fellow, Hanse Institute of Advanced Study (www.h-w-k.de).
[email protected].
[FN1]. See generally Martti Koskenniemi/Paivi Leino, Fragmentation of International Law? Postmodern Anxieties, 15 Leiden
J. Int'l L. 553 (2002) (NE) (providing an insightful and critical analysis of the legal fragmentation problem).
[FN2]. See Alfred C. Aman Jr., The Limits of Globalization and the Future of Administrative Law: From Government to
Governance, 8 Ind. J. Global Legal Stud. 379 (2001) (rejecting the idea that law is a victim to globalization from a legal
perspective); see also, Saskia Sassen, Globalization and its Discontents: Essays on the New Mobility of People and Money
(1998) (rejecting the idea that law is a victim to globalization from a sociological perspective).
[FN3]. Compare Christian Walter, Constitutionalizing (Inter)national Governance - Possibilities and Limits to the Develop-
ment of an Inernational Constitutional Law, 44 German YB Int'l L. 170 (2001) (taking a cautious stance with regard to an
emerging global constitutional order), and Anne Peters, The Merits of Global Constitutionalism, 16 Ind. J. Global Legal Stud.
397 (2009) (highlighting the analytical insights and conceptual promises of the concept of global constitutionalism), with Antje
Wiener. Global Constitutionalism: Mapping an Emerging Field. Background paper for the Conference: Constitutionalism in a
New Key?, Berlin 28-29 January 2011 (http:// cosmopolis.wzb.eu/content/program/conkey_Wiener_Mapping-Field.pdf)
(Berlin, 2011) (emphasizing the overarching nature of the term global constitutionalism, which combines elements of political
science (international relations) with those of international law and legal theory in addressing global governance challenges).
See also Peer Zumbansen, Comparative, global and transnational constitutionalism: The emergence of a transnational le-
gal-pluralist order, 1 Global Constitutionalism 16 (2012).
[FN4]. See, e.g., Nico Krisch/Benedict Kingsbury/Richard B. Stewart, The Emergence of Global Administrative Law, 68 Law
& Contemp. Probs.(2005).
[FN5]. For a critical discussion see Upendra Baxi, The Death of Human Rights (2d ed. 2005).
[FN6]. A case in point is the transformation of the “welfare state.” See generally Paul Pierson, The New Politics of the Welfare
State, 48 World Pol. 143 (1996).
[FN7]. See Philip Manow, Welfare State Building and Coordinated Capitalism in Japan and Germany, in The Origins of
Nonliberal Capitalism 94 (Streeck & Yamamura eds., 2001); Fritz W. Scharpf, The Viability of Advanced Welfare States in the
International Economy: Vulnerabilities and Options, 7 J. Eur. Pub. Pol'y. 190 (2000) (UK).
[FN8]. See generally Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of our Time (1944); Paul
Pierson, Politics in Time: History, Institutions, and Social Analysis (2004); Harry W. Arthurs, Governance After the Wash-
ington Consensus: The Public Domain, the State and the Microphysics of Power in Contrasting Economies, 24 Man & Dev. 85
(2002).
[FN9]. See generally Philip C. Jessup, Transnational Law (1956); Harold J. Berman, World Law, 18 Fordham Int'l L.J. 1617
(1995).
[FN10]. See generally Berthold Goldman, Arbitrage International et Droit Commun des Nations, Revue de l'Arbitrage 115
(1956) (Fr.); Clive M. Schmitthoff, International Business Law: A New Law Merchant, 2 Current L. & Soc. Prob. 129 (1961);
Roy Goode, Usage and Its Reception in Transnational Commercial Law, 46 Int'l & Comp. L.Q. 1 (1997); Ross Cranston,
Theorizing Transnational Commercial Law, 42 Tex. Int'l L.J. 597 (2007).
[FN11]. For a more extensive discussion see Peer Zumbansen, Transnational Law, in Elgar Encyclopedia of Comparative Law
738-54 (Jan M. Smits ed., 2006) [hereinafter Zumbansen, Transnational Law], and Peer Zumbansen, Neither „Public‟ nor
„Private‟, „National‟ nor „International‟: Transnational Corporate Governance from a Legal Pluralist Perspective, 38 J.L. &
Soc'y 50 (2011) [[hereinafter Corporate Governance].
[FN12]. For a powerful discussion of this assumption see Jürgen Habermas, The Postnational Constellation: Political Essays
(2001)
[FN13]. This is forcefully argued in Thomas Vesting, Rechtstheorie (2007).
[FN14]. See generally Eugen Ehrlich, Fundamental Principles of the Sociology of Law (Walter L. Moll trans., Harvard Univ.
Press 1936) (1913).
[FN15]. See generally Georges Gurvitch, Sociology of Law (Alan Hunt trans., Transaction Publishers 2001) (1947).
[FN16]. See generally Sally Falk Moore, Law and Social Change: The Semi-Autonomous Field as an Appropriate Subject of
Study, 7 Law & Soc'y Rev. 719 (1973) [hereinafter Moore, Social Change]; Sally Falk Moore, Law as Process (1978).
[FN17]. See generally John Griffiths, What is Legal Pluralism?, 24 J. Legal Pluralism & Unofficial L. 1 (1986).
[FN18]. See generally Sally Engle Merry, Legal Pluralism, 22 Law & Soc'y Rev. 869 (1988) [hereinafter Merry, Legal Plu-
ralism]; Sally Engle Merry, New Legal Realism and the Ethnography of Transnational Law, 31 Law & Soc. Inquiry 975 (2006).
[FN19]. Gunther Teubner, After Legal Instrumentalism? Strategic Models of Post-regulatory Law, in Dilemmas of Law in the
Welfare State 299 (Gunther Teubner ed., 1986) [hereinafter Dilemmas]; see generally Gunther Teubner, The Two Faces of
Janus: Rethinking Legal Pluralism, 13 Cardozo L. Rev. 1443 (1992) [hereinafter Rethinking Legal Pluralism].
[FN20]. Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Toward a New Legal Common Sense (2d ed. 2002)
[FN21]. For an application of this approach for a law school course, see Alfred C. Aman, Jr. & Peer Zumbansen, Transnational
Law: Actors, Norms, Processes (forthcoming 2012).
[FN22]. See generally Harry W. Arthurs, Without the Law: Administrative Justice and Legal Pluralism in Nineteenth Century
England (1988); Ehrlich, supra note 14. For an insightful summary see Marc Galanter, Farther Along, 33 Law & Soc'y Rev.
1113 (1999), and Marc Galanter, In the Winter of Our Discontent: Law, Anti-Law, and Social Science, Ann. Rev. L. & Soc.
Sci. 1 (2006).
[FN23]. See generally Niklas Luhmann, A Sociological Theory of Law (1985) [[hereinafter Luhmann, Sociological Theory];
Niklas Luhmann, Law as a Social System, 83 Nw. U. L. Rev. 136 (1989) [hereinafter Luhmann, Social System]; Niklas
Luhmann, Operational Closure and Structural Coupling: The Differentiation of the Legal System, 13 Cardozo L. Rev. 1419
(1992).
[FN24]. See generally Niklas Luhmann, Political Theory in the Welfare State (John Bednarz Jr. trans., de Gruyter 1990) .
[FN25]. See generally Niklas Luhmann, The World Society as a Social System, 8 Int'l J. Gen. Systems 131 (1982); see also
John W. Meyer et al., World Society and the Nation-State, 103 Am. J. Soc. 144 (1997).
[FN26]. See Ralf Michaels, Territorial Jurisdiction after Territoriality, in Globalisation and Jurisdiction 105 (Piet J. Slot &
Mielle K. Bulterman eds., 2004).
[FN27]. See, e.g., Emmanuel Gaillard, Legal Theory of International Arbitration (2010); see also Gunther Teubner, 'Global
Bukowina': Legal Pluralism in the World Society, in Global Law Without A State 3 (Gunther Teubner ed., 1997).
[FN28]. See generally Eric A. Posner, Law and Social Norms (2000) [[hereinafter Posner, Social Norms].
[FN29]. See generally Paul Schiff Berman, Global Legal Pluralism, 80 S. Cal. L. Rev. 1155 (2007) [hereinafter Berman, Global
Legal Pluralism]; Paul Schiff Berman, The New Legal Pluralism, 5 Ann. Rev. L. & Soc. Sci. 225 (2009); and now his mono-
graphic treatment: Global Legal Pluralism. A Jurisprudence of Law Beyond Borders (2012); Ralf Michaels, Global Legal
Pluralism, 5 Ann. Rev. L. & Soc. Sci. 243 (2009) [hereinafter Michaels, Global Legal Pluralism].
[FN30]. Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905). For an insightful history of the case's reception and legacy, see Sujit
Choudhry, The Lochner Era and Comparative Constitutionalism, 2 Int'l J. Const. L. 1 (2004).
[FN31]. See e.g., Marc Galanter, Why the 'Haves' Come Out Ahead: Speculations on the Limits of Legal Change, 9 Law &
Soc'y Rev. 95 (1974) [[hereinafter Galanter, „Haves' Come Out Ahead]; Orly Lobel, The Paradox of Extralegal Activism:
Critical Legal Consciousness and Transformative Politics, 120 Harv. L. Rev. 937 (2007) [hereinafter Lobel, Paradox].
[FN32]. See generally Peer Zumbansen, Law After the Welfare State: Formalism, Functionalism and the Ironic Turn of Ref-
lexive Law, 56 Am. J. Comp. L. 769 (2008) [hereinafter Zumbansen, Law].
[FN33]. See e.g., Adrienne Héritier & Dirk Lehmkuhl, The Shadow of Hierarchy and New Modes of Governance, 28 J. Pub.
Pol'y 1 (2008); Alec Stone Sweet, Constitutionalism, Legal Pluralism, and International Regimes, 16 Ind. J. Global Legal Stud.
621 (2009); Christiana Ochoa, The Relationship of Participatory Democracy to Participatory Law Formation, 15 Ind. J. Global
Legal Stud. 5 (2008); Peter Evans, Is an Alternative Globalization Possible?, 36 Pol. & Soc'y 271 (2008).
[FN34]. See generally David Schneiderman, Realising Rights in an Era of Economic Globalisation: Discourse Theory, Investor
Rights, and Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment, in Redefining Sovereignty in International Economic Law 429
(Wenhau Shan, Penelope Simons & Dalvinder Singh eds., 2008); see also Alexander Somek, The Argument from Transna-
tional Effects II: Establishing Transnational Democracy, 16 Eur. L.J. 375 (2010).
[FN35]. SeeMariana Valverde, Jurisdiction and Scale: Legal 'Technicalities' as Resources for Theory, 18 Soc. & Legal Stud.
139 (2009).
[FN36]. See generally Jessup, supra note 9.
[FN37]. See generally Francis Snyder, Global Economic Networks and Global Legal Pluralism, in Transatlantic Regulatory
Co-operation (George A. Bermann et al. eds., 2001); Francis Snyder, Economic Globalisation and the Law in the 21st Century,
in The Blackwell Companion to Law and Society 624 (Austin Sarat ed., 2004).
[FN38]. See generally Clive M. Schmitthoff, The New Sources of the Law of International Trade, 15 Int'l Soc. Sci. J. 259
(1963); Filip De Ly, Lex Mercatoria (New Law Merchant): Globalisation and International Self-Regulation, in Rules and
Networks: The Legal Culture of Global Business Transactions 159 (Richard Appelbaum et al. eds., 2001).
[FN39]. See generally Patrycja Dabrowska, GM Foods, Risk, Precaution and the Internal Market: Did Both Sides Win the Day
in the Recent Judgment of the European Court of Justice?, 15 German L.J. 151 (2004); Dayna Nadine Scott, Nature/Culture
Clash: The Transnational Trade in GMOs (Global Law, Working Paper No. GLWP 06/05, 2005), available at
http://www.nyulawglobal.org/GLWP_ 0605.htm; Antonia Eliason, Science versus Law in WTO Jurisprudence: The
(Mis)Interpretation of the Scientific Process and the (In)sufficiency of Scientific Evidence in EC-Biotech, 41 N.Y.U. J. Int'l L.
& Pol. 341 (2009).
[FN40]. See generally David D. Clark, A Cloudy Crystal Ball: Visions of the Future, in Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth
Internet Engineering Task Force 539-544 (Megan Davies et al. eds., 1992), available at http://
www.ietf.org/old/2009/proceedings/prior29/IETF24.pdf; Christoph Engel, The Role of Law in the Governance of the Internet,
20 Int'l Rev. L. Computers & Tech. 201-16 (2006); Jack Goldsmith, The Internet, Conflicts of Regulation, and International
Harmonisation, in Governance of Global Networks in the Light of Differing Local Values 197 (Christoph Engel & Kenneth
Keller eds., 2000); Jochen von Bernstorff, The Structural Limitations of Network Governance: ICANN as a Case in Point, in
Transnational Governance and Constitutionalism 257 (Christian Joerges et al. eds., 2004).
[FN41]. See generally Jutta Brunnée, Of Sense and Sensibility: Reflections on International Liability Regimes as Tools for
Environmental Protection, 53 Int'l & Comp. L.Q. 351 (2004); Oren Perez, Ecological Sensitivity and Global Legal Pluralism:
Rethinking the Trade and Environment Conflict (2004); Transboundary Harm in International Law: Lessons from the Trail
Smelter Arbitration (Rebecca M. Bratspies & Russell A. Miller eds., 2006); Andrew P. Morriss & Roger E. Meiners, Borders
and the Environment, 39 Envtl. L. 141 (2009); John M. Conley & Cynthia A. Williams, Global Banks as Global Sustainability
Regulators?: The Equator Principles, 33 Law & Pol'y 542 (2011).
[FN42]. See generally Tomer Broude & Doron Teichman, Outsourcing and Insourcing Crime: The Political Economy of
Globalized Criminal Activity, 62 Vand. L. Rev. 795 (2009).
[FN43]. See generally Ulrich Beck, Living in the World Risk Society, 35 Econ. & Soc'y 329 (2006); Ulrich Beck, Critical
Theory of World Risk Society: A Cosmopolitan Vision, 16 Constellations 3 (2009); Ulrich Beck, World at Risk (Ciaran Cronin
trans., Polity Press 2009) (2007).
[FN44]. Marc Amstutz, Globalising Speenhamland: On the Transnational Metamorphosis of Corporate Social Responsibility
in Globalisation and the Potential of Law in Transnational Markets 359, 373-74 (C. Joerges & J. Falke eds., 2011)
[FN45]. See generally Sigurt Vitols, Varieties of Corporate Governance: Comparing Germany and the UK, in Varieties of
Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage 337 (Peter A. Hall & David Soskice eds., 2001); Klaus J.
Hopt, Common Principles of Corporate Governance in Europe?, in Corporate Governance Regimes: Convergence and Diver-
sity 175 (Joseph A. McCahery et al. eds., 2002).
[FN46]. See generally Harry Arthurs & Claire Mummé, From Governance to Political Economy: Insights from a Study of
Relations between Corporations and Workers, 45 Osgoode Hall L.J. 439 (2007); Jennifer Gordon, Transnational Labor Citi-
zenship, 80 S. Cal. L. Rev. 503 (2007); Peer Zumbansen, New Governance in European Corporate Governance Regulation as
Transnational Legal Pluralism, 15 Eur. L.J. 246 (2009) [hereinafter Zumbansen, New Governance]; Horst Eidenmüller, Recht
als Produkt, 64 Juristenzeitung [JZ] 641 (2009) (Ger.).
[FN47]. For an inspiring discussion, see Klaus Günther, Legal Pluralism or Uniform Concept of Law?, 5 No Found. J. Extreme
Legal Positivism 5 (2008); Florian F. Hoffmann, In Quite a State: Trials and Tribulations of an Old Concept in New Times, in
Progress in International Law 263 (Russell A. Miller & Rebeca M. Bratspies eds., 2008); William Twining, Globalisation and
Legal Theory (2000).
[FN48]. See generally Oren Perez, Normative Creativity and Global Legal Pluralism: Reflections on the Democratic Critique
of Transnational Law, 10 Ind. J. Global Legal Stud. 25 (2003); Zumbansen, Transnational Law, supra note 11; T. Alexander
Aleinikoff, Transnational Spaces: Norms and Legitimacy, 33 Yale J. Int'l L. 479 (2008); Sweet, supra note 33; Craig M. Scott,
'Transnational Law' as Proto-Concept: Three Conceptions, 10 German L.J. 859 (2009) [[hereinafter Scott, Proto-Concept].
[FN49]. See generally Rebecca Bratspies, Regulatory Trust, 51 Ariz. L. Rev. 575 (2009); Government and Markets: Toward a
New Theory of Regulation (Edward J. Balleisen & David A. Moss eds., 2010).
[FN50]. See generally Adam Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society (Fania Oz-Salzberger ed., 1995) (1767);
Emile Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Society (W.D. Halls trans., Free Press 1984) (1893).
[FN51]. See generally Henry Sumner Maine, Ancient Law: Its Connection with the Early History of Society and Its Relation to
Modern Ideas (1861); Ferdinand Tönnies, Community and Society (Ch. P. Loomis trans., Michigan State Univ. Press 1957)
(1887); Max Weber, On Law in Economy and Society (Max Rheinstein trans., Touchstone 1967) (1925).
[FN52]. Jothie Rajah, Authoritarian Rule of Law: Legislation, Discourse and Legitimacy in Singapore (New York, NY:
Cambridge University Press 2012)
[FN53]. See generally David Trubek, Toward a Social Theory of Law: An Essay on the Study of Law and Development, 82
Yale L.J. 1 (1972); Dilemmas, supra note 19; Zumbansen, Law, supra note 32.
[FN54]. See generally Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., The Path of the Law, 10 Harv. L. Rev. 457 (1897); Felix Cohen, Tran-
scendental Nonsense and the Functional Approach, 35 Colum. L. Rev. 809 (1935); Duncan Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of
Classical Legal Thought (1975). A very worthwhile discussion and analysis with a stunning treatment of the literature is pro-
vided by Neil Duxbury, Patterns of American Jurisprudence (1995).
[FN55]. See generally H.L.A. Hart, Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals, 71 Harv. L. Rev. 593 (1958); Lon Fuller,
Positivism and Fidelity to Law--A Reply to Professor Hart, 71 Harv. L. Rev. 630 (1958); H.L.A. Hart, American Jurisprudence
through English Eyes: The Nightmare and the Noble Dream, 11 Ga. L. Rev. 969 (1977); Stanley L. Paulson, On the Back-
ground and Significance of Gustav Radbruch's Post-War Papers, 26 Oxford J. Legal Stud. 17 (2006).
[FN56]. See generally Moore, Social Change, supra note 16; Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Law: A Map of Misreading Toward
a Postmodern Conception of Law, 14 J.L. & Soc'y 279 (1987); Merry, Legal Pluralism, supra note 18.
[FN57]. See generally Trubek, supra note 53; Galanter, 'Haves' Come Out Ahead, supra note 30.
[FN58]. See generally Guido Calabresi, The Cost of Accidents: A Legal and Economic Analysis (1970); Richard A. Posner,
Economic Analysis of Law (1973).
[FN59]. See generally Philippe Nonet & Philip Selznick, Law and Society in Transition: Toward Responsive Law (1978);
Gunther Teubner, Juridification -- Concepts, Aspects, Limits, Solutions, in Juridification of Social Spheres: A Comparative
Analysis in the Areas of Labor, Corporate, Antitrust and Social Welfare Law 3 (Gunther Teubner ed., 1987) [hereinafter Ju-
ridification].
[FN60]. See generally Duncan Kennedy, Three Globalizations of Law and Legal Thought: 1850-2000, in The New Law and
Economic Development: A Critical Appraisal 19 (David M. Trubek & Alvaro Santos eds., 2006); Boaventura de Sousa Santos,
Toward a New Legal Common Sense: Law, Globalization, and Emancipation (2002); Peer Zumbansen, Law's Effectiveness
and Law's Knowledge: Reflections from Legal Sociology and Legal Theory, 10 German L.J. 417 (2009) [hereinafter Zum-
bansen, Law's Effectiveness].
[FN61]. See generally Reinhart Koselleck, Geschichte, Recht und Gerechtigkeit, in Zeitschichten: Studien zur Historik 336
(2000); Baxi, supra note 5.
[FN62]. See generally Luhmann, Sociological Theory, supra note 23.
[FN63]. See generally Gunther Teubner, How the Law Thinks: Toward a Constructivist Epistemology of Law, 23 Law & Soc'y
Rev. 727 (1989); Gunther Teubner, Dealing With Paradoxes: Derrida, Luhmann, Wiethölter, in Paradoxes and Inconsistencies
in Law 41 (Oren Perez & Gunther Teubner eds., 2005).
[FN64]. See generally Walter Benjamin, The Critique of Violence (Edmund Jephcott trans.), reprinted in Reflections: Essays,
Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings (Peter Dementz ed., 1978); Jacques Derrida, Force of Law, 11 Cardozo L. Rev. 919
(1990). For an excellent discussion and homage, see Petra Gehring, Force and “Mystical Foundation” of Law: How Jacques
Derrida Addresses Legal Discourse, 6 German L.J. 151 (2005), and the contributions to the same issue.
[FN65]. Roger Cotterrell, Why Must Legal Ideas Be Interpreted Sociologically?, 25 J.L. & Soc'y 171, 176 (1998) [hereinafter
Cotterrell, Legal Ideas].
[FN66]. Id. at 182.
[FN67]. Id. at 187. “Sociological interpretation of legal ideas is not a particular, specialized way of approaching law, merely
co-existing with other kinds of understanding. Sociology of law in this particular context is a transdisciplinary enterprise and
aspiration to broaden understanding of law as a social phenomenon.” Id.
[FN68]. Id. at 188.
[FN69]. Id. at 178, noted in Jack M. Balkin, Interdisciplinarity as Colonization, 53 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 949 (1996).
[FN70]. Cotterrell, Legal Ideas, supra note 65, at 189.
[FN71]. See generally James C. Scott, Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed
(1998); Niklas Luhmann, Metamorphosen des Staates, in 4 Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik. Studien zur Wissenssoziologie
der modernen Gesellschaft 101 (1995).
[FN72]. See generally Zumbansen, New Governance, supra note 46; Gralf-Peter Calliess & Peer Zumbansen, Rough Con-
sensus and Running Code: A Theory of Transnational Private Law (2010).; Zumbansen, Transnational Legal Pluralism, 2
Trans. L. Theory 141 (2010).
[FN73]. See generally Jessup, supra note 9; Scott, Proto-Concept, supra note 48.
[FN74]. See generally Goode, supra note 10; Cranston, supra note 10.
[FN75]. See generally Global Law Without A State (Gunther Teubner ed., 1997).
[FN76]. See generally Paul Schiff Berman, From International Law to Law and Globalization, 43 Colum. J. Transnat'l L. 485
(2005); Mathias Reimann, From the Law of Nations to Transnational Law: Why We Need a New Basic Course for the Inter-
national Curriculum, 22 Penn St. Int'l L. Rev. 397 (2004); Peer Zumbansen, Globalization and the Law: Deciphering the
Message of Transnational Human Rights Litigation, 5 German L.J. 1499 (2004); Craig Scott, A Core Curriculum for the
Transnational Legal Education of JD and LLB Students: Surveying the Approach of the International, Comparative and
Transnational Law Program at Osgoode Hall Law School, 23 Penn St. Int'l L. Rev. 757 (2005).
[FN77]. See generally Richard Ford, Law's Territory (A History of Jurisdiction), 97 Mich. L. Rev. 843 (1999); Saskia Sassen,
Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages (2006) [hereinafter Sassen, Territory, Authority, Rights];
Saskia Sassen, The Places and Spaces of the Global: An Expanded Analytic Terrain, in Globalization Theory: Approaches and
Controversies 79 (David Held & Anthony G. McGrew eds., 2007); Shaunnagh Dorsett & Shaun McVeigh, Questions of Ju-
risdiction, in Jurisprudence of Jurisdiction 1 (Shaun McVeigh ed., 2007); Aleinikoff, supra note 48.
[FN78]. See generally Roger Cotterrell, A Legal Concept of Community, 12 Canadian J.L. & Soc'y 75 (1997); Roger Cotterrell,
Transnational Communities and the Concept of Law, 21 Ratio Juris 1 (2008).
[FN79]. See generally Berman, Global Legal Pluralism, supra note 29; Michaels, Global Legal Pluralism, supra note 29.
[FN80]. See generally Kenneth W. Abbott & Duncan Snidal, Hard and Soft Law in International Governance, 54 Int'l Org. 421
(2000); Christine Chinkin, The Challenge of Soft Law: Development and Change in International Law, 38 Int'l & Comp. L.Q.
850 (1989). See generally Hard Choices, Soft Law: Voluntary Standards in Global Trade, Environment and Social Governance
(John J. Kirton & Michael J. Trebilcock eds., 2004); Gregory Shaffer & Mark A. Pollack, Hard vs. Soft Law: Alternatives,
Complements and Antagonists in International Governance, 94 Minn. L. Rev. 706 (2010).
[FN81]. See generally Posner, Social Norms, supra note 28; Norms and the Law (John N. Drobak ed., 2006); Robert C. El-
lickson, Law and Economics Discovers Social Norms, 27 J. Legal Stud. 537 (1998); David Charny, Illusions of a Spontaneous
Order: „Norms„ in Contractual Relationships, 144 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1841 (1996); Symposium, Law, Economics, and Norms, 144
U. Pa. L. Rev. 1643 (1996). With regard to the norms versus regulation conflict, for example, in the current debate over a
common frame of reference for European private law, compare Jan Smits, European Private Law: a Plea for a Spontaneous
Legal Order, in European Integration and Law 85 (Deirdre M. Curtin et al. eds., 2006), with Martijn W. Hesselink, A Spon-
taneous Order for Europe? Why Hayek's Libertarianism is Not the Right Way Forward for European Private Law, in European
Private Law After the Common Frame of Reference (Hans-W. Micklitz & Fabrizio Cafaggi eds., 2010).
[FN82]. See generally Roberta Romano, Law as Product: Some Pieces of the Incorporation Puzzle, 1 J.L. Econ. & Org. 225
(1985); Erin A. O'Hara & Larry E. Ribstein, The Law Market (2009); Gralf-Peter Calliess & Hermann B. Hoffmann, Judicial
Services for Global Commerce --Made in Germany?, 10 German L.J. 115 (2009); Gralf-Peter Calliess & Hermann B. Hoff-
mann, Effektive Justizdienstleistungen für den globalen Handel, 42 Zeitschrift für Rechtspolitik 1 (2009) (Ger.); Eidenmüller,
supra note 46.
[FN83]. See generally Duncan Kennedy, Form and Substance in Private Law Adjudication, 89 Harv. L. Rev. 1685 (1976);
Duncan Kennedy, From the Will Theory to the Principle of Private Autonomy: Lon Fuller's „Consideration and Form„, 100
Colum. L. Rev. 94 (2000).
[FN84]. See generally Carol Harlow, „Public„ and „Private„ Law: Definition without Distinction, 43 Mod. L. Rev. 241 (1980);
Morton J. Horwitz, The Transformation of American Law 1870-1960: The Crisis of Legal Orthodoxy (1992).
[FN85]. See generally Robert L. Hale, Coercion and Distribution in a Supposedly Non-Coercive State, 38 Pol. Sci. Q. 470
(1923); Frances E. Olsen, The Family and the Market: A Study of Ideology and Legal Reform, 96 Harv. L. Rev. 1497 (1983).
For a historical discussion, see Viktor Vanberg, Markt und Organisation: Individualistische Sozialtheorie und das Problem
korporativen Handelns (1982).
[FN86]. Rethinking Legal Pluralism, supra note 19; Gunther Teubner, The King's Many Bodies: The Self-Deconstruction of
Law's Hierarchy, 31 Law & Soc'y Rev. 763 (1997); de Sousa Santos, supra note 60.
[FN87]. For a discussion of the U.S. development, see Orly Lobel, The Renew Deal: The Fall of Regulation and the Rise of
Governance in Contemporary Legal Thought, 89 Minn. L. Rev. 342 (2004); for Germany, see Juridification, supra note 55.
[FN88]. Zumbansen, Law's Effectiveness, supra note 60, at 10; see generally Gunther Teubner, Substantive and Reflexive
Elements in Modern Law, 17 Law & Soc'y Rev. 239 (1983); de Sousa Santos, supra note 60.
[FN89]. See generally Habermas, supra note 12; Jürgen Habermas, A Political Constitution for the Pluralist World Society?, in
Between Naturalism and Religion: Philosophical Essays 312 (Jürgen Habermas ed., 2008).
[FN90]. See generally Twining, note 47.
[FN91]. In the world of transnational governance, “[t]he usual panoply of constitutional mechanisms of accountability and
legitimacy which characterises liberal democratic constitutional systems is not necessarily available.” Julia Black & David
Rouch, The Development of Global Markets as Rule-Makers: Engagement and Legitimacy, Law & Fin. Markets Rev. 218, 224
(2008) (depicting the system of international financial governance to be distinct from nation state based understandings of
governance); see generally Pierre-Hugues Verdier, Transnational Regulatory Networks and Their Limits, 34 Yale J. Int'l L. 113
(2009), and for the intriguing debate following this paper, see David Zaring, Response to Transnational Regulatory Networks
and Their Limits, Opinio Juris (Apr. 9, 2009, 10:46AM), http:// opinioju-
ris.org/2009/04/09/transnational-regulatory-networks-and-their-limits/.
[FN92]. See generally Wilhelm von Humboldt, The Sphere and Duties of Government (The Limits of State Action) (Joseph
Coulthard trans., 1854) (1792); Jean-Bertrand Auby, La globalisation, Le Droit et l'État 95 (2003); Hoffmann, supra note 44;
Stephen Bell & Andrew Hindmoor, Rethinking Governance: The Centrality of the State in Modern Society (2009).
[FN93]. See generally Humboldt, supra note 92 (1792); Auby, supra note 92; Hoffmann, supra note 44.
[FN94]. See generally Daniela Caruso, Private Law and State-Making in the Age of Globalization, 39 N.Y.U. J. Int'l L. & Pol.
1 (2006).
[FN95]. For an insightful discussion, see Kenneth W. Abbott & Duncan Snidal, Strengthening International Regulation
Through Transnational New Governance: Overcoming the Orchestration Deficit, 42 Vand. J. Transnat'l L. 501 (2009), and
Colin Scott, Reflexive Governance, Meta-Regulation and Corporate Social Responsibility: The „Heineken Effect„, in Pers-
pectives on Corporate Social Responsibility 170 (Nina Boeger et al. eds., 2008); see also Amiram Gill, Corporate Governance
as Social Responsibility: A Research Agenda, 26 Berkeley J. Int'l L. 452, 471-74 (2008) (“Corporate self-regulation and me-
ta-regulation, read against the New Governance literature, capture a central element in the complexity of business law. That is,
these regulatory patterns accompany socio-legal changes in market economies, highlighted by the fall of state authority and the
rise of private ordering.”); Christopher M. Bruner, States, Markets, and Gatekeepers: Public-Private Regulatory Regimes in an
Era of Economic Globalization, 30 Mich. J. Int'l L. 125, 129, 165 (2008) (discussing credit rating agencies and the Internet
Corporation for Domain Names and Numbers--ICANN--as examples of “public-private gatekeepers” and their govern-
ment-like exercise of regulatory authority).
[FN96]. See generally Benedict Kingsbury et al., Forward: Global Governance as Administration--National and Transnational
Approaches to Global Administrative Law, 68 Law & Contemp. Prob. 1 (2005); Kalypso Nicolaidis & Gregory Shaffer,
Transnational Mutual Recognition Regimes: Governance without Global Government, 68 Law & Contemp. Prob. 263 (2005).
For critical comments on this project, see Carol Harlow, Global Administrative Law: The Quest for Principles and Values, 17
Euro. J. Int'l L. 187 (2006); B.S. Chimni, Co-option and Resistance: Two Faces of Global Administrative Law, 37 N.Y.U. J.
Int'l L. & Pol. 799 (2005); Susan Marks, Naming Global Administrative Law, 37 N.Y.U. J. Int'l L. & Pol. 995 (2006).
[FN97]. See generally Walter, supra note 3; Christian Joerges, The Challenges of Europeanization in the Realm of Private Law:
A Plea for a New Legal Discipline, 14 Duke J. Comp. & Int'l L. 149 (2004); David Kennedy, A New World Order: Yesterday,
Today, Tomorrow, 4 Transnat'l L. & Contemp. Prob. 329 (1994).
[FN98]. See the examples in Emerging Legal Certainty: Empirical Studies on the Globalization of Law (Volkmar Gessner &
Ali Cem Budak eds., 1998); Andreas Fischer-Lescano & Gunther Teubner, Regime-Collisions: The Vain Search for Legal
Unity in the Fragmentation of Global Law, 25 Mich. J. Int'l L. 999 (2004).
[FN99]. Gunther Teubner & Peter Korth, Two Kinds of Legal Pluralism: Collision of Laws in the Double Fragmentation of
World Society, in Regime Interaction in International Law: Facing Fragmentation (2009) (forthcoming), available at
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1416041. Teubner and Korth further explain:
unitary global law reproduces itself through legal acts which are guided by different programs but are in the end
oriented towards the binary code legal/illegal. The unity of global law is just not, as in the nation state, based on the consistency
of legal norms structurally secured by the hierarchy of the courts; rather, it is process-based, deriving simply from the modes of
connection between legal operations, which transfer binding legality between even highly heterogeneous legal orders.
Id.
[FN100]. But see Twining, note 47.
[FN101]. For a parallel application of such a perspective, see supra note 53.
[FN102]. See, e.g., Ulrich Sieber, Rechtliche Ordnung in einer Globalen Welt, 41 Rechtstheorie 151 (2010) (Ger.).
[FN103]. See Michel Rosenfeld, Rethinking Constitutional Ordering in an Era of Legal and Ideological Pluralism, 6 Int'l J.
Const. L. 415 (2008); Christopher McCrudden, A Common Law of Human Rights? Transnational Judicial Conversations on
Constitutional Rights, 20 Oxford J. Legal Stud. 499 (2000).
[FN104]. See generally Baxi, supra note 5.
[FN105]. See, e.g., Boaventura de Sousa Santos, The Processes of Globalisation, Eurozine (Aug. 22, 2002),
http://www.eurozine.com/pdf/2002-08-22-santos-en.pdf; Sally Engle Merry, Measuring the World: Indicators, Human Rights,
and Global Governance, 52 Current Anthropology 583 (2011).
[FN106]. For a critical discussion, see Theodor Schilling, Constitutionalization of General International Law--An Answer to
Globalization? Some Structural Aspects (NYU Jean Monnet Program, Working Paper 2005), available at http:// cen-
ters.law.nyu.edu/jeanmonnet/archive/fellowsforum/documents/schillingForumPaper020405.pdf; Sol Picciotto, Constitutiona-
lizing Multilevel Governance?, 6 Int'l J. Const. L. 457 (2008); Martin Loughlin, What is Constitutionalization?, in The Twilight
of Constitutionalism? 47 (Petra Dobner & Martin Loughlin eds., 2010).
[FN107]. See generally Jerry Louis Mashaw, Accountability and Institutional Design: Some Thoughts on the Grammar of
Governance (Yale Law Sch. Research Paper No. 116, 2006), available at http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=924879.
[FN108]. See generally Julia Black, Constructing and Contesting Legitimacy and Accountability in Polycentric Regulatory
Regimes (LSE Law, Society and Economy, Working Paper No. 2, 2008), available at http:// ssrn.com/abstract=1091783 (as-
sociating legitimacy and accountability concerns of transnational regulatory regimes with a set of “functional, democratic,
normative” challenges).
[FN109]. See generally David Held, Democratic Accountability and Political Effectiveness from a Cosmopolitan Perspective,
39 Gov't & Opposition 364 (2004).
[FN110]. For a lament of the concept's shortcomings in providing guidance for the development of sustainable and effective
regulatory instruments, compare Armin Bogdandy, Philipp Dann, & Matthias Goldmann, Developing the Publicness of Public
International Law, 9 German L.J. 1375 (2008), with David Held, Reframing Global Governance: Apocalypse Soon or Reform!,
in Globalization Theory: Approaches and Controversies 240, 245-46, 249-254 (David Held & Anthony McGrew eds., 2007),
and Mathias Koenig-Archibugi, Global Governance, in The Handbook of Globalisation 318 (Jonathan Michie ed., 2003)
(highlighting the interdisciplinary challenges that are captured in the term).
[FN111]. Jürgen Habermas, The New Obscurity: The Crisis of the Welfare State and the Exhaustion of Utopian Energies,
(1985) in The New Conservatism: Cultural Criticism and the Historians' Debate (Shierry Weber Nicholsen ed. & trans., 1989)
[hereinafter Habermas, New Obscurity].
[FN112]. See Niklas Luhmann, Law as a Social System 49 (Fatima Kastneret et al. eds., Klaus A. Ziegert trans., 2004) [he-
reinafter Luhmann, Social System].
[FN113]. In this regard, see the helpful comparative reconstructions of public and private law concepts in Nils Jansen & Ralf
Michaels, Private Law and the State; Comparative Perceptions and Historical Observations, 71 Rabels Zeitschrift für
ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht [RabelsZ] 345 (2007), reprinted in Beyond the State: Rethinking Private Law 15
(Nils Jansen & Ralf Michaels eds., 2008).
[FN114]. This is elaborated in Peer Zumbansen, Transnational Comparisons: Theory and Practice of Comparative Law as a
Critique of Global Governance, in Theory and Practice of Comparative Law (Jacco Bomhoff & Maurice Adams eds., 2012).
[FN115]. Habermas, supra note 12.
[FN116]. See the succinct observations by Twining, note 47 (regarding the challenges to jurisprudence); Jürgen Osterhammel
& Niels P. Petersson, Globalization: A Short History (Dona Geyer trans., 2004) (regarding the interdisciplinary challenges of
studying and deciphering globalization). “The fact that historians assert with calm detachment that this phenomenon has existed
for a long time does not preclude the need to make a political assessment of its impact on the present.” Id. at 150.
[FN117]. See generally Adelle Blackett, Global Governance, Legal Pluralism and the Decentered State: A Labor Law Critique
of Codes of Corporate Conduct, 8 Ind. J. Global Legal Stud. 401 (2001); Harry W. Arthurs, Labor Law Without the State, 46
Univ. Toronto L.J. 1 (1996).
[FN118]. See generally Simon Deakin, Reflexive Governance and European Company Law, 15 Eur. L.J. 224 (2009); Larry
Cata Backer, Private Governance, Soft Law, and the Construction of Polycentric Networks for the Regulation of Transnational
Corporations, 17 Ind. J. Global Legal Stud. 751 (forthcoming 2012).
[FN119]. See generally Zumbansen, Law, supra note 32.
[FN120]. See generally Trubek, supra note 53; Robert M. Cover, Nomos and Narrative, 97 Harv. L. Rev. 4 (1983); Derrida,
supra note 64; Gunther Teubner, Self-Subversive Justice: Contingency or Transcendency Formula of Law?, 72 Modern L. Rev.
1 (2009).
[FN121]. See, e.g., de Sousa Santos, supra note 60.
[FN122]. For a comparative approach from the perspective of legal geography, see Ford, supra note 77; Mariana Valverde,
Jurisdiction and Scale: Legal 'Technicalities' as Resources for Theory, 18 Soc. & Legal Stud. 139 (2009).
[FN123]. See generally Saskia Sassen, The State and Globalization, in The Emergence of Private Authority in Global Go-
vernance 91 (Rodney Bruce Hall & Thomas J. Biersteker eds., 2002); Sassen, Territory, Authority, Rights, supra note 77.
[FN124]. See generally Gunther Teubner, Fragmented Foundations: Societal Constitutionalism Beyond the Nation State, in
The Twilight of Constitutionalism? 327 (Petra Dobner & Martin Loughlin eds., 2010). See also his recent monograph: Ver-
fassungsfragmente. Gesellschaftlicher Konstitutionalismus in der Globalisierung (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 2012)
[FN125]. See, e.g., Saskia Sassen, The Embeddedness of Electronic Markets: The Case of Global Capital Markets, in The
Sociology of Financial Markets 17 (Karin Knorr Cetina & Alex Preda eds., 2005) [hereinafter Sassen, Embeddedness of
Electronic Markets].
[FN126]. See generally Hauke Brunkhorst, Constitutionalism and Democracy in the World Society, in The Twilight of Con-
stitutionalism? 179 (Petra Dobner & Martin Loughlin eds., 2010); Petra Dobner, More Law, Less Democracy? Democracy and
Transnational Constitutionalism, in The Twilight of Constitutionalism? 141 (Petra Dobner & Martin Loughlin eds., 2010).
[FN127]. See generally Moore, Social Change, supra note 17.
nomics, Sociology, Neoliberalism, Polanyi's Double Movement and Intellectual Vacuums, Society for the Advancement of
Socio-Economics, Presidential Address July 22 (2008)), available at http://web.mit.edu/ipc/publications/pdf/08-004.pdf.
[FN152]. See generally Saskia Sassen, Globalization or Denationalization?, 10 Rev. Int'l Pol. Econ. 1 (2003); Sassen, Em-
beddedness of Electronic Markets, supra note 125.
[FN153]. For an illustration in the case of corporate law, see Corporate Governance, supra note 11.
[FN154]. For a brilliant overview, see generally Thomas Hale and David Held, Mapping Changes in Transnational Gover-
nance, in Handbook of Transnational Governance: Institutions and Innovations 1, 1-36 (Hale & Held eds., 2011); see also Colin
Scott, Regulation in the Age of Governance: The Rise of the Post-Regulatory State, in The Politics of Regulation: Institutions
and Regulatory Reforms for the Age of Governance 145, 145-74 (Jacint Jordana & David Levi-Faur eds., 2004).
[FN155]. See generally Eur. Corp. Governance Inst., www.ecgi.org (last visited July 7, 2012).
[FN156]. Johannes Köndgen, Privatisierung des Rechts. Private Governance zwischen Deregulierung und Rekonstitutionali-
sierung, 206 Archiv für die cilivilistische Praxis [AcP] 477 (2006) (Ger.); Thomas M.J. Möllers, Europäische Methoden- und
Gesetzgebungslehre im Kapitalmarktrecht. Vollharmonisierung, Generalklauseln und soft law im Rahmen des Lamfalus-
sy-Verfahrens zur Etablierung von Standards, Zeitschrift für Europäisches Privatrecht 480, 485 (2008) (Ger.); Peer Zumban-
sen, The Privatization of Corporate Law? Corporate Governance Codes and Commercial Self-Regulation, Juridikum 136
(2002).
[FN157]. See generally Nils Brunsson & Bengt Jacobsson, A World of Standards (2000); Robert Wai, Transnational Private
Law and Private Ordering in Contested Global Society, 46 Harv. Int'l L.J. 471 (2005).
[FN158]. For a recent overview, see the excellent collection in The Transnational Studies Reader: Intersections & Innovations
(Sanjeev Khagram & Peggy Levitt eds., 2008); see also Janet Joven Levit, Bottom-Up International Lawmaking: Reflections
on the New Haven School of International Law, 32 Yale J. Int'l L. 393 (2007). Also see the contributions by Alexia Herwig,
Transnational Governance Regimes for Food Derived from Bio-technology and Their Legitimacy, at 199; Oren Perez, The
Many Faces of the Trade-Environment Conflict: Some Lessons for the Constitutionalisation Project, at 233; Bernstorff, supra
note 38, at 257; Karl-Heinz Ladeur, ICANN and the Illusion of a Community-Based Internet: Comments on Jochen von
Bernstorff, at 283; and Craig Scott & Robert Wai, Transnational Governance of Corporate Conduct through the Migration of
Human Rights Norms: The Potential Contribution of Transnational „Private‟ Litigation, at 287, in Transnational Governance
and Constitutionalism, supra note 39.
[FN159]. See generally Colin Scott, Regulating Everything, Inaugural Lecture, University College Dublin School of Law (Feb.
26, 2008) (unpublished manuscript), available at http:// geary.ucd.ie/mapping/images/Documents/RegEverything.pdf.
[FN160]. See Eugen Ehrlich, Fundamental Principles of the Sociology of Law 486-506 (1962); Gurvitch, supra note 15; Max
Rheinstein, Review: Two Recent Books on Sociology of Law, 51 Ethics 220, 221-22 (1941) (reviewing Timasheff's “Intro-
duction” and Gurvitch's “Elements”).
[FN161]. See generally Paul Schiff Berman, Global Legal Pluralism, 80 S. Cal. L. Rev. 1155 (2007).
[FN162]. See David Schneiderman, Transnational Legality and the Immobilization of Local Agency, 2 Ann. Rev. L. & Soc.
Sci. 387 (2006); see also Peter Fitzpatrick, Terminal Legality? Human Rights and Critical Being, in Critical Beings: Law,
Nation and the Global Subject 119 (Peter Fitzpatrick & Patricia Tuitt eds., 2004).
[FN163]. See generally David Kinley & Junko Tadaki, From Talk to Walk: The Emergence of Human Rights Responsibilities
for Corporations at International Law, 44 Va. J. Int'l L. 931 (2004); David Vogel, The Private Regulation of Global Corporate
Conduct, in The Politics of Global Regulation 151 (Walter Mattli & Ngaire Woods eds., 2009); Backer, supra note 114.
[FN164]. Blackett, supra note 117; Harry W. Arthurs, Reinventing Labor Law for the Global Economy: The Benjamin Aaron
Government Networks, 39 Gov't & Opposition 159 (2004); Anne-Marie Slaughter, A New World Order (2004).
[FN182]. See generally Klaus Peter Berger, The Creeping Codification of the Lex Mercatoria (1999); Klaus Peter Berger, The
New Law Merchant and the Global Market Place: A 21st Century View of Transnational Commercial Law, in The Practice of
Transnational Law 1 (Peter Berger ed., 2001); but see Peer Zumbansen, Piercing the Legal Veil: Commercial Arbitration and
Transnational Law, 8 Eur. L.J. 400 (2002).
[FN183]. For an excellent overview and analysis, see Reinhard Zimmermann, The Present State of European Private Law, 57
Am. J. Comp. L. 479 (2009).
[FN184]. See generally Geraint Howells & Thomas Wilhelmsson, EC Consumer Law: Has it Come of Age?, 28 Eur. L. Rev.
370 (2003); Ugo Mattei & Fernanda Nicola, A 'Social Dimension' in European Private Law? The Call for Setting a Progressive
Agenda, 41 New Eng. L. Rev. 1 (2006).
[FN185]. See Special Issue, supra note 180.
[FN186]. See generally O'Hara & Ribstein, supra note 82; Eidenmüller, supra note 43.
[FN187]. See generally Caruso, supra note 94.
[FN188]. See generally Rudolf Wiethölter, Materialization and Proceduralization in Modern Law, in Dilemmas of Law in the
Welfare State 221 (Gunther Teubner ed., 1986).
[FN189]. See generally Global Law Without A State, supra note 75.
[FN190]. Sassen's work on global cities is particularly relevant in this regard: she has been arguing for decades that global cities
gain autonomy from their local environments both by adapting real-time collaborative and networking capacities with other
cities and operative centers and by successfully demanding and implementing a facilitating, supportive infrastructure (elec-
tricity, broadband, digitization, 24/7 service, access, and maintenance). For a concise restatement of her long-term, mono-
graphical work on global cities, see Saskia Sassen, The Global City, in Readings in Urban Theory 61 (Susan Fainstein & Scott
Campbell eds., 1996).
[FN191]. See Symposium, Beyond Dispute: International Judicial Institutions as Lawmakers, 12 German L.J. 979-1370
(2011), available at http:// www.germanlawjournal.com/index.php?pageID=2&vol=12&no=5.
[FN192]. See the still excellent exposition of the interdisciplinary nature of globalization studies in Introduction, in The Global
Transformations Reader: An Introduction to the Globalization Debate (David Held & Anthony McGrew eds., 2d ed. 2003).