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Abstract:
Nature of authority in the global pol
economy
Rules governing intl commercial relations,
w/c today form part of the juridical
conditions of global capitalism, location and
structure of political authority are argued to
be historically specific
Significance of the private corporate power
in the construction of the global political
economy and hegemonic authority relations
changing nature of authority in the generation
and enforcement of international commercial
norms.
It argues that these norms, known as the law
merchant (lexmercatoria)or private international
trade law, are essential to the historical
constitution of the global political economy
although their role is obscure and little
understood by students of international relations.
This obscurity is argued to be significant for at least two
reasons.
First, the article posits that the law merchant is
so foundational that it is both a constitutive
element of global capitalism and an attribute of
the capitalist order (Wood, 1981; Cutler, 1995)
- The law merchant is a crucial mediator of
domestic and global political/legal orders
- The law merchant thus forms part of the
juridical foundations of global capitalism.
Second, the paper argues that the prevailing
ontological, epistemological ,and ideological
orientations in the study of international
relations and international law render this
foundation invisible and thus limit our
understanding of the nature of authority in the
global political economy(Cutler,1997)
- An examination of the historical evolution
of the law merchant reveals a dialectical
movement in the consolidation and
expansion of corporate power.
- This movement parallels the consolidation
of state power and capitalism in the nationstate and the subsequent transnational
expansion of capitalism beyond the nationstate