Eiselen, Sieg --- "Globalization and Harmonization of International Trade Law" [2010] ELECD 290; in Faure, Michael; van der Walt, André (eds), "Globalization and Private Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: Globalization and Private Law

Editor(s): Faure, Michael; van der Walt, André

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848447608

Section: Chapter 4

Section Title: Globalization and Harmonization of International Trade Law

Author(s): Eiselen, Sieg

Number of pages: 40

Extract:

4. Globalization and harmonization of
international trade law
Sieg Eiselen

1 INTRODUCTION
The phenomenon of globalization is speeding up in the current century.
Although there is as yet no clear and generally accepted definition of what
exactly globalization means and includes, there are a number of core charac-
teristics which can be used to describe the phenomenon in international trade.1
Globalization is characterized by the increasing way in which international
borders are becoming irrelevant, especially in respect of international trade,
due to the modern forms of transport, modern forms of communication
(specifically the internet) and the use of English as the common trade
language. It is a process driven mostly by economic and technological forces,
irrespective of any legal barriers that may exist.2
The way in which international markets have become integrated and mutu-
ally dependent in the last century and a half was dramatically demonstrated
first by the worldwide recession, caused by the protectionist trade measures of
the United States and the ensuing tariff war, during the early part of the twen-
tieth century,3 and more recently by the Asian financial crisis in 1997, which
caused not only severe economic turbulence in South-East Asia but a world-
wide economic slowdown,4 and the worldwide tremors sent through interna-
tional markets originating in the ongoing American sub-prime crisis and
recession of 2008.
The tardiness of the law to respond to the challenges posed by globaliza-
tion, by the needs of international trade and by the ...