What Is Transnational Law?

Journal of Law and Society, 2009

The growth of`legal transnationalism' ± that is, the reach of law across nation-state borders and the impact of external political and legal pressures on nation-state law ± undermines the main foundations of sociology of law. Modern sociology of law has assumed aǹ instrumentalist' view of law as an agency of the modern directive state, but now it has to adjust to the state's increasingly complex regulatory conditions. The kind of convergence theory that underpins analysis of much legal transnationalism is inadequate for socio-legal theory, and old ideas of`law' and`society' as the foci of sociology of law are no longer appropriate. Socio-legal theory should treat law as a continuum of unstable, competing authority claims. Instead of taking society' as its reference point, it should conceptualize the contrasting types of regulatory needs of the networks of community (often not confined by nation-state boundaries) that legal transnationalism addresses.

Tribuna Juridică, 2021

The paper presents the emergence and evolution of the concept of transnational law, from the Philip Jessup's 1956 novation to the latest approaches, mainly from the western legal scholarship. In the legal writings from Romania or Republic of Moldova, the phenomenon of transnational law remains unexplored or, at best, mentioned incidental as a synonym of a modern "lex mercatoria". Likewise, in Russian scholarship, research on transnational law bears a strong private imprint and ubiquitous reluctance may be noted. This article aims to discuss, from the perspective of legal pluralism, the loss of the state monopoly in law making, the pluralization of sources of legitimacy for transnational actors, and the reconsideration of the scope of the law, by de-territorializing it. Transnational law is seen thus not just a private regime, but as a system of normative law that transcends international or national law, acts in a distinct social space and addresses specific actors, not only private, but also public or hybrid. In Romanian legal knowledge this approach is missing.

Ratio Juris, 2008

The proliferation of forms of transnational regulation, often unclear in their relation to the law of nation states but also, in some cases, claiming authority as "law," suggests that the concept of law should be reconsidered in the light of processes associated with globalisation. This article identifies matters to be taken into account in any such reconsideration: in particular, ideas of legal pluralism, of degrees of legalisation, and of relative legal authority. Regulatory authority should be seen as ultimately based in the diverse moral conditions of the networks of community which regulation serves. * This article is based on the text of a paper given at a colloquium on "Globalisation and the International Community" at the University of London Institute in Paris on April 14, 2007. I am grateful especially to André-Jean Arnaud for valuable comments.

Journal of Law and Society, 2022

This article challenges the dominant perspective centred around the figure of the nation-state by placing emphasis on what is usually perceived to be the margins of transnational law. Based on a review of the vibrant scholarship in the socio-legal literature, this paper sketches the features of social facts that can be found in the interstices of national legal systems and professions. Although these facts are marginalised from the perspective of these systems and professions, their role is no less real in the global arena, in whose centres they are situated. The study of these facts raises methodological questions that this article seeks to address. By attempting to shift the research focus from one object to another, in particular, this article casts light on methodological debates concerning the need to define research categories on a preliminary basis.

What is transnational law? Various procedures and theories have emanated from this slippery signifier, but in general academics and legal practitioners who use the term have settled on certain common meanings for it. My purpose in this article is not to disrupt but to clarify these meanings by turning to literary theory and criticism that regularly address transnationality. Cultural and postcolonial studies are the particular strains of literary theory and criticism to which I will attend. To review “transnational law,” examining its literary inertia and significations, is the objective of this article, which does not purport to settle the matter of denotation. Rather, this article is an essay in definition, a quest for etymological precision. Its take on transnationalism will rely not so much on works of literature (novels, plays, poems, drama, and so forth) but on works of literary theory and criticism. It will reference literary critics as wide-ranging as George Orwell, Kenneth Burke, and Edward Said. It will explore the “trans” prefix as a supplantation of the “post” prefix. The first section of this article, “Nationalism,” will examine the concept of nationalism that transnationalism replaced. A proper understanding of transnational law is not possible without a look at its most prominent antecedent. The first section, then, will not explore what transnationalism is; it will explore what transnationalism is not. The second section, “Transnationalism,” will piece together the assemblages of thought comprising transnationalist studies. This section will then narrow the subject of transnationalism to transnational law. Here I will attempt to squeeze several broad themes and ideals into comprehensible explanations, hopefully without oversimplifying; here also I will tighten our understanding of transitional law into something of a definition. Having tentatively defined transnational law, I will, in section three, “Against the New Imperialism,” address some critiques of capitalism by those cultural critics who celebrate the transnational turn in global law and politics. Although I share these critics’ enthusiasm for transnational law, I see capitalism - another hazy construct that will require further clarification - as a good thing, not as a repressive ideology that serves the wants and needs of the hegemonic or elite.

The chapter provides an introduction into law and globalization for sociolegal studies. Instead of treating globalization as an external factor that impacts the law, globalization and law are here viewed as intertwined. I suggest that three types of globalization should be distinguished — globalization as empirical phenomenon, globalization as theory, and globalization as ideology. I go on to discuss one central theme of globalization, namely in what way society, and therefore law, move beyond the state. This is done along the three classical elements of the state — territory, population/citizenship, and government. The role of all of these elements is shifting, suggesting we need to move away from the traditional paradigm of both social and legal studies: methodological nationalism. I do not answer here how this paradigm should be replaced, but I discuss one prominent candidate of a meta-theory: transnational law. Transnational law, I suggest, helps transcend dichotomies of methodo...

The Many Lives of Transnational Law: Critical Engagements with Jessup’s Bold Proposal. Edited by Peer Zumbansen, Cambridge University Press, 2020

his is an epilogue to a volume commemorating 60 years since Philip Jessup’s “definition” of Transnational Law. Unsurpassed for its citablity and quotability, Jessup's concept was nonetheless formed within a particular context of intellectual history. It has inspired three intellectual projects, called here Transnational Legal Process, Transnational Legal Theory and Transnational Legal Orders. This book is most clearly a mapping and an itinerary of the middle category, Transnational Legal Theory. The distance traveled between Jessup’s conception and the one presented here is most evident in a new definition offered in the Introduction by its editor which rather than acting as a prompt or a distillation, is an unpacking of the essential features of Transnational Law as an critical and intellectual project. Along with its rival itineraries, its moves toward interdisicplinarity, criticality, and legal pluralism move us not towards a consensus concept, but a transdisciplinary horizon.

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Recht der Werkelijkheid 32 (2011) 3, p. 3-7., 2011

The concept of transnationalism refers to border-crossing activities and social relations, such as family relations, migration, international trade and international organisations. This special issue looks at the relevance of such developments to socio-legal studies. Of course, transnationalism is hardly a new phenomenon. Colonialism could be seen as a transnational legal process on a vast scale and what could be called transnational advocacy networks emerged as early as the 18th century (e.g., the anti-slavery movement with ties between Haiti, Great Britain, and France).2 However, the extent to which transnational developments are now occurring is new and characteristic of modern times. The transnational effects of events, situations and actions are nowadays supposed to arise more rapidly, directly and powerfully than in the past. In the introduction to this special issue we explain the relevance of transnationalism to socio-legal studies and the usefulness of the sociology of law for studying transnational law and transnational processes; we also discuss three challenges that transnationalism poses for the sociology of law.