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 lawmaking 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 through nonstate actors and institutions. The second approach provides a theoretical framework for sociolegal study of the transnational processes through which legal norms are constructed, flow, and settle across national borders. The third develops theory to critique and reformulate the concept of law in transnational terms that include nonstate processes.