Suchergebnisse

This monography provides an excellent synthesis of Roger Brownsword's pio-neering scholarship at the interface of bio-technologies and regulation over the past decade (see, among many others, 'What the World needs now: TechnoRegu-lation, Human Rights, and Human Dignity', in R. Brownsword [ed], Human Rights [Oxford, Hart, 2004] 203; 'Bioethics Today, Bioethics Tomorrow: Stem Cell Re-search and the Dignitarian Alliance' 17 University of Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy 15, 2003; 'Red Lights and Rogues: Regulating Human Genetics', in H. Somsen [ed], The Regulatory Challenge of BioTechnology [Chelten-ham: Edward Elgar, 2007] 39). Although it is hardly in need of introduction in the English-speaking world, the editors of this Review have thought it important that attention should be drawn to this work, published in 2008, in continental European private law circles, where the prevalence of legal formalism means lesser familiarity with – and greater resistance to – the very concept of regulation and the various strategies by means of which human behavior can be channeled, including through the appropriate design of tools which may or may not be recognizable as 'law'. Moreover, for similar reasons, issues of political philosophy rarely find their way through the mesh of legal technique, even in fields which engage issues of democracy, human dignity or the status of scientific knowledge to the extent that genetical engineering obviously does, particularly in a global market of ever-available technology. In this remarkable book, Roger Brownsword uses the lense of regulation to address the dilemma facing our complex societies as articulated by Habermas (The Future of Human Nature [Cambridge, Polity Press, 2003] 92): should normative foundations be dropped, in favour of bioge-netic steering mechanisms? [First paragraph]

The aim of this project is to explore the ways in which, in the absence of traditional forms of government in a global setting, the law can discipline the transnational exercise of private power by a variety of market actors (from rating agencies, technical standard-setters and multi-national agribusinesses to vulture funds). Traditionally, the cross-border economic activities of non-state actors fall within the remit of an area of the law known as 'private international law'. However, despite the contemporary juridification of international politics, private international law has contributed very little to the global governance debate, remaining remarkably silent before the increasingly unequal distribution of wealth and authority in the world. By abandoning such matters to its public international counterpart, it leaves largely untended the private causes of crisis and injustice affecting such areas as financial markets, environmental protection, pollution, the status of sovereign debt, the bartering (or confiscation) of natural resources and land, the use (and misuse) of development aid, (unequal) access to food, the status of migrant populations, and many more. On the other hand, public international law itself, on the tide of managerialism and fragmentation, is now increasingly confronted with conflicts articulated as collisions of jurisdiction and applicable law, among which private or hybrid authorities and regimes now occupy a significant place. According to the genealogy of private international law depicted here, the discipline has developed, under the aegis of the liberal divides between law and politics and between the public and the private spheres, a form of epistemological tunnel-vision, actively providing immunity and impunity to abusers of private sovereignty. It is now more than time to de-closet private international law and excavate the means with which, in its own right, it may impact upon the balance of informal power in the global economy. This means both quarrying the new potential of human rights in the transnational sphere, and rediscovering the specific savoir-faire acquired over many centuries in the recognition of alterity and the responsible management of pluralism. In short, adopting a planetary perspective means reaching beyond the schism between the public and private spheres and connecting up with the politics of international law.

The aim of this project is to explore the ways in which, in the absence of traditional forms of government in a global setting, the law can discipline the transnational exercise of private power by a variety of market actors (from rating agencies, technical standard-setters and multi-national agribusinesses to vulture funds). Traditionally, the cross-border economic activities of non-state actors fall within the remit of an area of the law known as 'private international law'. However, despite the contemporary juridification of international politics, private international law has contributed very little to the global governance debate, remaining remarkably silent before the increasingly unequal distribution of wealth and authority in the world. By abandoning such matters to its public international counterpart, it leaves largely untended the private causes of crisis and injustice affecting such areas as financial markets, environmental protection, pollution, the status of sovereign debt, the bartering (or confiscation) of natural resources and land, the use (and misuse) of development aid, (unequal) access to food, the status of migrant populations, and many more. On the other hand, public international law itself, on the tide of managerialism and fragmentation, is now increasingly confronted with conflicts articulated as collisions of jurisdiction and applicable law, among which private or hybrid authorities and regimes now occupy a significant place. According to the genealogy of private international law depicted here, the discipline has developed, under the aegis of the liberal divides between law and politics and between the public and the private spheres, a form of epistemological tunnel-vision, actively providing immunity and impunity to abusers of private sovereignty. It is now more than time to de-closet private international law and excavate the means with which, in its own right, it may impact upon the balance of informal power in the global economy. This means both quarrying the new potential of ...

Taking a critical approach to private international law, this volume examines its function and role in an era of global governance. It asks if private international law has the potential to reassert itself as a significant governance function in respect of new forms of authority beyond the state, and how this might be done.