Suchergebnisse

The globalization of private international trade law, or the Modern Law Merchant (Lex Mercatoria), is said to revive the medieval tradition of common law & serves to provide a source of global governance in an increasingly pluralistic legal order. The nature & operation of the Modern Law Merchant as a juridical link between local & global political economies is analyzed. It is argued that this system of governance does not provide the much-needed public good of commercial certainty, but instead provides fundamentally private goods that benefit narrow First World interests. Its private governance agreements meet the needs of late, not medieval, capitalism, & of the global mercatocracy, which needs to adjust legal governance to a situation of flexible & transnational capital accumulation & intensified global competition. The idea that there are plural or multiple centers of global authority obscures the unified activities of this central agent & the extension of private international law into a full range of international commerce. M. Pflum

Regulatory diversity and the patenting of life -- The promise and perfidy of patents -- Origins of the patented species : of mice, men, and the sincerity of 'invention' -- The global governance of trade : trading in political ethics -- TRIP'ing over human rights : the legitimacy crisis at the WTO -- The sovereign right to self-determination : from agency to development and dignity -- Reconciling competing international obligations : the equitable conduct defence and the stewardship of the WTO

A good reputation can be an effective bond for honest behavior in a community of traders if members of the community know how others have behaved in the past – even if any particular pair of traders meets only infrequently. In a large community, it would be impossibly costly for traders to be perfectly informed about each other's behavior, but there exist institutions that can restore the effectiveness of a reputation system using much less extensive information. The system of judges used to enforce commercial law before the rise of the state was such an institution, and it successfully encouraged merchants (1) to behave honestly, (2) to impose sanctions on violators, (3) to become adequately informed about how others had behaved, (4) to provide evidence against violators of the code, and (5) to pay any judgments assessed against them, even though each of these behaviors might be personally costly.

Transnational merchant law, which is mistakenly regarded in purely technical and apolitical terms, is a central mediator of domestic and global political/legal orders. By engaging with literature in international law, international relations and international political economy, this 2003 book develops the conceptual and theoretical foundations for analyzing the political significance of international economic law. In doing so, it illustrates the private nature of the interests that this evolving legal order has served over time. The book makes a sustained and comprehensive analysis of transnational merchant law and offers a radical critique of global capitalism

"Reprinted for private circulation from The Journal of political economy. volume 23, no. 6, June 1915." ; Cover title. ; Mode of access: Internet.