The following paper is part of a multi-year research project that investigates the emergence of a transnational corporate governance regime as a key example of the transformation of state-based regulation. This example received an extensive treatment in the context of a monographical study...

The continuing proliferation of transnational private regulatory governance challenges conceptions of legal authority, legitimacy and public regulation of economic activity. The transnational law merchant or, lex mercatoria, is a case in point in this context, as it represents a laboratory for...

This chapter is the substantively revised and expanded version of the original contribution to the first edition of the Elgar Encyclopedia of Comparative Law (J.Smits, ed. 2006, 738-754). It reviews and discusses the theoretical scholarship of transnational law, going back to Philip Jessup's...

Long before the current financial and economic crisis, corporate governance and securities regulation had become part of one of the most interesting and dynamic regulatory areas in law and policy making today. Both areas had been undergoing dramatic transformations over the past 30-40 years,...

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the occasion of the 40th Anniversary of the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy at the University of New York at Buffalo, School of Law. In tribute to the legendary contributions by the Baldy Center and its members and affiliates over the...

This short essay introduces a set of timely critiques of the power shifts in global contracting. The chapters range from investment disputes and carbon trading, commercial arbitration and private military companies to cotton trading and global value chains. In a global context of a ‘turn to...

The paper focuses on the arguments scholars have been giving in supporting or in rejecting the thesis of an 'autonomous transnational legal order'. Focusing on the example of the 'law merchant' (lex mercatoria), the paper aims at tracing the models of law and, more comprehensively, of the...

Corporations are among the dominant contributors to climate change and environmental degradation. At the same time, they could still become champions to turn the ship around. With great power comes great responsibility. The emphasis on profit maximization led carbon majors to be one of the main...