ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how contemporary discourses among nation-states, transnational firms, and NGOs, which increasingly track threatening devel - opments such as “failed states,” “fragile states,” or “rogue states,” trigger oppor - tunities to reconsider Carl Schmitt’s call to envision a new “nomos of the Earth.” Schmitt’s appeal is a foundational one, because he demands all evaluate “the earth, the planet on which we live, as a whole, as a globe, and seek to understand its global division and order” (Schmitt 2006: 351). As he maintains, such fundamental rethinking is essential inasmuch as “nomos means Nahme [appropriation]; second, it also means division and distribution of what is taken; and third, utilization, management and usage of what has been obtained as the result of the division, i.e. production and consumption” (2006: 351).
