ABSTRACT
Throughout the common law and civil law systems there is an urgent debate. It concerns the effects of globalisation upon all economic systems and the role of law within that. It concerns the legal effects of an increasing governmental commitment to what is termed ‘rolling back the state’. It concerns legal responses to decreases in welfare spending and decreases in government services. It concerns the legal ramifications of the privatisation of those services governments will still provide. The term ‘privatisation’ refers to the process of shifting from State-centered to market driven systems. Thus it describes a decreasing role for government (Kelsey, 1998, 51) in the provison of vital consumer and citizen needs. Legal scholars debate the need to re-think our legal system, whether common or civil law, especially our private law mechanisms, in the light of economic rationalism. Just how crucial this re-assessment is can be illustrated by this assessment of the recent energy shutdown in New Zealand: ‘this is the post-privatisation capital of the world; the cutting edge of the New Right’s 1980’s revolution where the welfare State has been replaced by a lean, mean economy run according to the most efficient business practices’ (Good Weekend, 1998, 17).
