Private Power and Global Authority

This book offers a critical analysis of the role that international economic law plays in the creation and maintenance of global power relations. By examining the evolution of merchant law it argues that private interests have governed global economic relations through a little understood evolving legal order.

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Transnational merchant law, which is mistakenly regarded in purely technical and apolitical terms, is a central mediator of domestic and global political/legal orders. By engaging with literature in international law, international relations and international political economy, this book develops the conceptual and theoretical foundations for analyzing the political significance of international economic law. In doing so, it illustrates the private nature of the interests that this evolving legal order has served over time. The book makes a sustained and comprehensive analysis of transnational merchant law and offers a radical critique of global capitalism.