Harmonizing Law In An Era Of Globalization

The essays in this book highlight the most important ways in which domestic, international, public, and private legal systems interact with each other. The initial essays provide a theoretical overview of the study of legal harmonization--that is, of the nature and character of communication, accommodation, amalgamation, or resistance among legal systems. These interactions occur within horizontal relationships, between political institutions operating at the same level of authority. Vertical relationships between political institutions whose relationships are hierarchical have given rise to different patterns of interaction. New legal orders are being created through the adoption of international legal instruments that may reach nation-states, private entities, and individuals. Each has the potential for significantly affecting the sources of authority over public and private actors. Other essays illustrate the many ways in which communication between legal systems produce very real, if very different, effects across the world. This book is part of the Studies on Globalization and Society Series, edited by Raj Bhala, Rice Distinguished Professor, The University of Kansas School of Law. "[T]he individual essays may be profitably used to illustrate and discuss harmonization among both legal systems and political systems. In particular, the essays on South Africa, on Mercosur, and on Islam raise some distinct challenges and clear issues for scholars and students of globalization, both from a legal and a political science perspective." -- Law & Politics Book Review

Debate about globalization has raised some serious questions about the viability of the state. Jarrod Wiener argues here that there is a danger of making generalizations that the state has lost authority across a range of sovereignty issues. Concentrating on one aspect of sovereignty, that of protective jurisdiction, Wiener examines the USA and the states of the European Union as actors that are highly integrated into transnational practices, and takes international banking, money laundering, and the Internet as case studies. Wiener believes that the challenge to sovereignty from these practices comes from deregulation and liberalization of public policy, with the consequent empowerment of civil society actors who are transnationally mobile. In response, states are pursuing a two-fold strategy to assert control. The first is "domestication", which is the formulation of municipal law to control the activities of individuals and to localize control on the territory of the state. The second process is that of "harmonization" of laws across borders, which standardizes the means of controlling civil society actors.

Lawyers and the Rule of Law in an Era of Globalization focuses on the national and transnational processes transforming both the rule of law and the role of lawyers. The book draws on a framework that emphasizes the relationship between the national and the international, the strategies of lawyers at various political levels, and the circulation of ideas and people. As such, it considers the 'rule of law', not as a normative ideal that has to be accomplished and realized, but rather as a field of action and discourse that emerges through complex relationships among experts, national elites and global institutions. Through detailed empirical work, the contributors all examine the relationship between law, politics, and the state; focusing on lawyers and the social capital they posses and deploy, in order to understand the efficacy of the rule of law in different polities. Lawyers and the Rule of Law in an Era of Globalization will be invaluable for socio-legal scholars, students of the legal profession, as well as those with interests in law and development studies.

This timely book explores the relationship between private law and globalization. It examines the consequences of the fact that law making now takes place in a globalized world which increasingly leads to questions of accountability and legitimacy of the law making process. Within this work, European and South African scholars deal with the relationship between private law and globalization in fourteen innovative chapters, addressing inter alia globalization, democracy and accountability, harmonization versus decentralization, public law issues, corporate governance, procedural issues as well as human rights and the environment. This well-documented and original study will be a valuable resource for academics and legal practitioners as well as students. Specialists in private law, transnational law, international law and legal theory should also not be without this important book.

A multi-disciplinary, multi-author analysis of convergence and divergence between trade and international dispute settlement.

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