Transnational Law

Transnational law (TL) reacts to normative demands in world society and thus covers normative worlds beyond both domestic and international realms. Inasmuch as domestic law structures relations among actors within the confines of a territorial state, and international law structures relations among states, TL can be understood to structure relations “across” states and state jurisdictions, thus transcending some of the normative confines just mentioned. The study of TL thus reacts to some conceptual challenges to a sociopolitical constellation in which the common distinctions between the “domestic” and the “international,” as well as between “public” and “private” forms of regulation, are put into question and can no longer be trusted as effective thinking tools. Although work in international studies (broadly conceived) has long challenged the narrow conceptions of interstate politics and accounted for the varieties of themes in globalization, a vibrant body of work on TL now available in the fields of international legal studies (ILS) but also legal studies more broadly (e.g., in the field of law and society studies) has not yet found much replication in international relations (IR) theory. However, since TL can be said to correspond to transnational relations as introduced to IR theory mainly from the 1970s onward, theoretical and empirical engagement with TL will find an indeed rich conceptual context in international studies, the latter understood as an interdisciplinary scholarly endeavor. It needs to be noted, however, that for disciplinary fields using the term “international” as a significant part of their identity, thinking the “transnational” is a double-edged sword. Inasmuch as the meaning and relevance of the term “international” are put into question, disciplines risk putting into question their own relevance. However, facing globalization and the putative complexity of new constellations of actors and processes, international studies did indeed engage in some discussion on alternative framings of its main subject—with the “world,” the “global,” and last but not least the “transnational” as promising candidates. At the same time, while international law has become a hot topic in IR, this has not yet led to much acknowledgment of the role that transnational law plays in what is perhaps a newly emerging political constellation. Although work on transnational actors and networks of governance, as well as on the emergence of private authority beyond the state, has indeed touched on issues for which legal regulation is of a remarkable relevance, this has not stimulated much engagement with how TL is discussed in legal studies. Thus understood, for IR there is still much to be explored in the legal study’s work on TL, including transnational legal process, transnational legal theory, or transnational legal pluralism. Vice versa, legal studies could benefit from work in a tradition of political science, especially with regard to an understanding of the political consequences of a transnationalization of law and global normative order more generally. The aim of this article is to provide an overview of work on TL, though by inviting an interdisciplinary account of literature. The featured books and articles include work on TL in legal studies, as well as those publications in IR, which may provide the grounds for a soon-to-be lively discussion on TL and the role it plays in world society. Furthermore, the overview also entails work in fields such as sociology, anthropology, and geography, which have already explored TL as a rich phenomenon.