ABSTRACT

This edited volume provides critical reflections on the interplay between politics and law in an increasingly transnationalized global political economy. It focuses specifically on the emergence and operation of new forms of governance that are developing through a variety of transnational contractual practices, institutions, and laws in multiple sectors and areas of economic activity.

Interdisciplinary in nature, the volume includes contributions from law, political science, sociology, and international politics, with the focus on the political foundations of transnational contract being both original and path-breaking. Placing power at the center of the analysis, the volume reveals the heterogeneous landscape of contemporary law-making and the different kinds of politics giving rise to this form of global ordering. As the contributors note, this new form of governance requires a different type of political theory and legal theory, with the volume advancing understanding of the analytical, theoretical and normative dimensions of private transnational governance by contract, making a valuable contribution to new theory in law and politics.

It will be of great interest to students and academics in law, political science, international relations, international political economy and sociology, as well as international commercial arbitration lawyers, trade and investment lawyers, and legal firms.

chapter 1|36 pages

The politics of private transnational governance by contract

Introduction and analytical framework

part I|39 pages

Analytical and Theoretical Dimensions of Private Transnational Governance by Contract

part II|54 pages

Trade and Production: Global Value Chains and Transnational Private Governance by Contract

chapter 4|20 pages

Private transnational governance in global value chains

78Contract as a neglected dimension

chapter 5|18 pages

The new gatekeeper

Ethical audits as a mechanism of global value chain governance

chapter 6|15 pages

Relational contracts 2.0

Efficiency and power

part III|63 pages

Trade, Investment, and Dispute Settlement: Arbitration as Transnational Private Governance by Contract

part IV|107 pages

Sectoral Specifications of Private Transnational Governance by Contract

chapter 11|22 pages

Transnational carbon contracting

Why law’s invisibility matters

chapter 12|18 pages

Merchants of hegemony

Neoliberalism and the legitimacy of private contractual governance in the transnational cotton trade

chapter 13|22 pages

Regulating private military security companies by contract

Between anarchy and hierarchy?

chapter 14|23 pages

Conclusion: Empire through contract:

A private international law perspective