ABSTRACT
The time on clocks and watches is created by a global bureaucracy. This time is critical to the functioning of computer technology. Everything every computer does gets a timestamp that conforms with global standards. These standards are extra-legal yet recognized and relied upon by legal systems and regulatory agencies. They are supranational in that they are not formally approved by governments, and even when a government might reject a standard, it cannot help but comply in practice. Given the extent to which government, business, medicine, manufacturing, telecommunications, and education (among other things) are reliant on computer technology, the global reach of time policies is extraordinary. This essay discusses the administration of current time policies and the related debate about the leap second in order to explore how standards and policies developed outside of national legislative and juridical processes have a broad, global impact and actually inspire new forms of temporal pluralism.
