ABSTRACT
In Europe, the talk is about the harmonisation of laws and co-operation among nation-states. Around the world, transnational lawmaking, convention-drafting, and norm-sharing have a long and complex history that spans colonialism, the Commonwealth, the formation of the United Nations and, now, the new and still contested European Union. Adjudication has become a central aspect of the enterprise of border-crossing legal norms. Courts (both national and transnational) are vested with jurisdiction to enforce the obligations of public and private actors. Transnational legalism is often celebrated as a positive artefact of globalisation and of the development of human rights, even as decisions about how and when to use precepts crafted elsewhere entail difficult judgments.2
