Faure, Michael; Walt, André van der --- "Comparative and Concluding Remarks" [2010] ELECD 300; 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 14

Section Title: Comparative and Concluding Remarks

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

Number of pages: 12

Extract:

14. Comparative and concluding remarks
Michael Faure and André van der Walt

1 LAWMAKING BEYOND THE NATION STATE
Nancy Fraser has noted that the effects of globalization in the post-Cold War
era, including `the growing salience of supranational and international organi-
zations, both governmental and nongovernmental, and of transnational public
opinion', are making it increasingly difficult to assume that `the modern terri-
torial state is the appropriate unit for thinking about issues of justice, and that
the citizens of such states are the pertinent subjects of reference'.1
Similarly, Hans Lindahl has argued that the increasing political power of
multinational corporations challenges `legal liberalism's assumption that law
is coterminous with state law', forcing us to recognize that `even constitutional
law can be generated outside the state'.2
Amongst other things, globalization involves the growth of an international
or supranational normative value system that directly and indirectly affects
lawmaking in national states. This undermines traditional assumptions about
lawmaking in that it establishes new, transnational and transcultural norms and
standards that increasingly dominate regional and national discourses about
constitutionalism and human rights. Through the pressure exerted by a combi-
nation of international, regional and other transnational bodies, powerful
states, neighbours and trading partners, nongovernmental interest groups and
international or transnational corporations, municipal constitution- and
lawmaking bodies are obliged to ensure (or simply find) that their own law
conforms to the international value system. The most visible effect is the inclu-
sion of certain human rights norms and standards in bills ...