Politics of Transnational Law – serie

Demonstrating the crucial role that private international law and legality has played and continues to play in shaping globalization, this book argues that the rules, institutions, and actors that make up the practice of private international law have been critical in translating political and economic power into legal regimes that have facilitated the processes of globalization.These processes depend on two fundamental types of socio-political action – the legal structuring of emerging transnational spaces and flows of goods, capital, and finance, and the legal-political reconfiguration of state power and priorities to facilitate the growth of these spaces and their penetration into national political-economic-and social spaces. While a variety of processes were involved in these forms of action, the material practices of private international law played a central role in this project of political economic reconstruction.Offering a theory of private international legality as a practice that intersects with and provides a vehicle for the mobilization of political and economic power, this book examines the construction and enrolment of private law expertise and the structural condition of pluralism in the global political economy to argue that private international law has helped construct a global political economy responsive to the priorities of powerful actors and resistant to the demands and interests of the rest of the world’s populations. It will be of interest to academics and students exploring the relationship between law, international political economy and the nature of state power.

Regulatory Counter-Terrorism explores an emerging terrain in which the global governance of terrorism is expanding. This terrain is that of proactive regulatory governance – the management of the day-to-day activities of individuals and entities in order to pre-emptively minimize vulnerability to terrorism. Overshadowed by the more publicized dimensions of military and criminal justice responses to terrorism, regulatory counter-terrorism has grown in size and impact without stirring up as much academic debate.Through a critical assessment of international regulatory counter-terrorism in three areas – financial services, the control of arms and dangerous materials, and the cross-border movement of persons and goods – this volume identifies a dynamic trend. This is the refashioning of international rule making into a flexible and experimental exercise. This volume shows how this transformation is affecting societies across the world in new ways and in the process unravelling settled understandings of international law. Furthermore, through an in-depth analysis of the working processes of UN counter-terrorism bodies and the Financial Action Task Force, this book illustrates that the monitoring of the global counter-terrorism regime is, contrary to accepted understanding, in the main collaborative and managerial, and coercive only peripherally. Dynamic rule making and soft monitoring complement each other, but this is a reason for concern: the softening of international monitoring encourages regulatory adventurism by states in tackling terrorism, while the element of self-correction in dynamic rule making helps silence the calls for institutionalized mechanisms of accountability.This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of counter-terrorism, security studies, global governance, and international law.

Questions of legal extraterritoriality figure prominently in scholarship on legal pluralism, transnational legal studies, international investment law, international human rights law, state responsibility under international law, and a large number of other areas. Yet many accounts of extraterritoriality make little effort to grapple with its thorny conceptual history, shifting theoretical valence, and complex political roots and ramifications. This book brings together thirteen scholars of law, history, and politics in order to reconsider the history, theory, and contemporary relevance of legal extraterritoriality. Situating questions of extraterritoriality in a set of broader investigations into state-building, imperialist rivalry, capitalist expansion, and human rights protection, it tracks the multiple meanings and functions of a distinct and far-reaching mode of legal authority. The fundamental aim of the volume is to examine the different geographical contexts in which extraterritorial regimes have developed, the political and economic pressures in response to which such regimes have grown, the highly uneven distributions of extraterritorial privilege that have resulted from these processes, and the complex theoretical quandaries to which this type of privilege has given rise.The book will be of considerable interest to scholars in law, history, political science, socio-legal studies, international relations, and legal geography.

Questions of legal extraterritoriality figure prominently in scholarship on legal pluralism, transnational legal studies, international investment law, international human rights law, state responsibility under international law, and a large number of other areas. Yet many accounts of extraterritoriality make little effort to grapple with its thorny conceptual history, shifting theoretical valence, and complex political roots and ramifications. This book brings together thirteen scholars of law, history, and politics in order to reconsider the history, theory, and contemporary relevance of legal extraterritoriality. Situating questions of extraterritoriality in a set of broader investigations into state-building, imperialist rivalry, capitalist expansion, and human rights protection, it tracks the multiple meanings and functions of a distinct and far-reaching mode of legal authority. The fundamental aim of the volume is to examine the different geographical contexts in which extraterritorial regimes have developed, the political and economic pressures in response to which such regimes have grown, the highly uneven distributions of extraterritorial privilege that have resulted from these processes, and the complex theoretical quandaries to which this type of privilege has given rise.The book will be of considerable interest to scholars in law, history, political science, socio-legal studies, international relations, and legal geography.

Demonstrating the crucial role that private international law and legality has played and continues to play in shaping globalization, this book argues that the rules, institutions, and actors that make up the practice of private international law have been critical in translating political and economic power into legal regimes that have facilitated the processes of globalization.These processes depend on two fundamental types of socio-political action – the legal structuring of emerging transnational spaces and flows of goods, capital, and finance, and the legal-political reconfiguration of state power and priorities to facilitate the growth of these spaces and their penetration into national political-economic-and social spaces. While a variety of processes were involved in these forms of action, the material practices of private international law played a central role in this project of political economic reconstruction.Offering a theory of private international legality as a practice that intersects with and provides a vehicle for the mobilization of political and economic power, this book examines the construction and enrolment of private law expertise and the structural condition of pluralism in the global political economy to argue that private international law has helped construct a global political economy responsive to the priorities of powerful actors and resistant to the demands and interests of the rest of the world’s populations. It will be of interest to academics and students exploring the relationship between law, international political economy and the nature of state power.

Governmentality and EU External Trade and Environment Policy applies theories drawn from Foucauldian governmentality studies to investigate the ideological and political roots of the European Union (EU)’s external trade and environmental policy and their effects on the transnational legal landscape. The EU’s desire to spread environmental norms abroad is viewed in the book as a significant feature of contemporary EU trade policy. The EU’s activities in this area have not been uncontroversial for other transnational legal actors. States, individuals, and organizations have challenged the EU’s various trade and environment policies, arguing that they are coercive, unfair, over-reaching, or inefficient. Meanwhile, these policies have also raised a number of questions from the perspective of legality and political theory. This book considers what the practice of EU external trade and environment policy, and international resistance to it, tells us about the way the EU perceives the role and limits of transnational government, the means and ends of politics, and the drivers of human and institutional behavior. Jessica Lawrence examines the legal and political discourse of the EU and those affected by its policies. By studying legal cases, statements by officials, legislative texts, press releases, and other representative documents the book identifies the rationalities, technologies, and subjectivities that underlie contemporary EU activity in this area. The overall effect paints a more complicated and nuanced picture of the EU’s vision of itself and its goals; one that ultimately seeks to provide a better understanding of the functioning of power in this area.

This edited volume provides critical reflections on the interplay between politics and law in an increasingly transnationalized global political economy. It focuses specifically on the emergence and operation of new forms of governance that are developing through a variety of transnational contractual practices, institutions, and laws in multiple sectors and areas of economic activity. Interdisciplinary in nature, the volume includes contributions from law, political science, sociology, and international politics, with the focus on the political foundations of transnational contract being both original and path-breaking. Placing power at the center of the analysis, the volume reveals the heterogeneous landscape of contemporary law-making and the different kinds of politics giving rise to this form of global ordering. As the contributors note, this new form of governance requires a different type of political theory and legal theory, with the volume advancing understanding of the analytical, theoretical and normative dimensions of private transnational governance by contract, making a valuable contribution to new theory in law and politics. It will be of great interest to students and academics in law, political science, international relations, international political economy and sociology, as well as international commercial arbitration lawyers, trade and investment lawyers, and legal firms.

This edited volume provides critical reflections on the interplay between politics and law in an increasingly transnationalized global political economy. It focuses specifically on the emergence and operation of new forms of governance that are developing through a variety of transnational contractual practices, institutions, and laws in multiple sectors and areas of economic activity. Interdisciplinary in nature, the volume includes contributions from law, political science, sociology, and international politics, with the focus on the political foundations of transnational contract being both original and path-breaking. Placing power at the center of the analysis, the volume reveals the heterogeneous landscape of contemporary law-making and the different kinds of politics giving rise to this form of global ordering. As the contributors note, this new form of governance requires a different type of political theory and legal theory, with the volume advancing understanding of the analytical, theoretical and normative dimensions of private transnational governance by contract, making a valuable contribution to new theory in law and politics. It will be of great interest to students and academics in law, political science, international relations, international political economy and sociology, as well as international commercial arbitration lawyers, trade and investment lawyers, and legal firms.