Theorizing Transnational Legal Ordering

Abstract

This article categorizes three approaches to theorizing transnational legal ordering that respectively address private legal ordering, provide a framework for the study of the interaction of law-making and practice at the transnational, national, and local levels, and reconfigure the concept of law. The first approach develops theories of private legal ordering, involving lawmaking, adjudication, and enforcement though non-state actors and institutions. The second approach provides a theoretical framework for socio-legal study of the transnational processes through which legal norms are constructed, flow, and settle across national borders. The processes can be top-down, bottom-up, horizontal, and transversal, involving interaction among different public and private organizations and networks at different levels of social organization, from the transnational to the local, potentially giving rise to distinct transnational legal orders. The third approach develops theory to critique and reformulate the concept of law in transnational terms that include non-state processes.