Muir Watt, Horatia --- "Theorizing transnational authority: a private international law perspective" [2016] ELECD 1240; in Cotterrell, Roger; Del Mar, Maksymilian (eds), "Authority in Transnational Legal Theory" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2016) 325

Book Title: Authority in Transnational Legal Theory

Editor(s): Cotterrell, Roger; Del Mar, Maksymilian

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781784711610

Section: Chapter 12

Section Title: Theorizing transnational authority: a private international law perspective

Author(s): Muir Watt, Horatia

Number of pages: 36

Abstract/Description:

The traditional paradigm which frames (international) law’s apprehension of transnational authority leads it to deny legal status to norms that are not state- endorsed or enforced. It explains why the allocatory function of the conflict of laws is not being fulfilled in respect of transnational private authority. Moreover, by disqualifying alternative forms of legitimacy, the methods of this discipline, have worked paradoxically to dis-embed authority in the global economy. This serves as a strong warning signal for the private ‘branch’ of international law, whose recent record of disconnection from the rise of non-state power has left it impotent in both war and crisis. It is argued in this respect that the fundamental difficulty from a global governance perspective is to ensure the re-allocation of responsibility to the sites of non-state authority that still fall outside international law’s empire.