A. Claire Cutler

Critical reflections on the Westphalian assumptions of international law and organization: a crisis of legitimacy

This article argues that the fields of international law and organization are experiencing a legitimacy crisis relating to fundamental reconfigurations of global power and authority. Traditional Westphalian-inspired assumptions about power and authority are incapable of providing contemporary understanding, producing a growing disjunction between the theory and the practice of the global system. The actors, structures, and processes identified and theorized as determinative by the dominant approaches to the study of international law and organization have ceased to be of singular importance. Westphalian-inspired notions of state-centricity, positivist international law, and ‘public’ definitions of authority are incapable of capturing the significance of non-state actors, informal normative structures, and private, economic power in the global political economy.

Location “Authority” in the Global Political Economy

This article addresses the problematic nature of “authority” in the global political economy. Focusing on the rules governing international commercial relations, which today form part of the juridical conditions of global capitalism, the location and structure of political authority are argued to be historically specific. They have changed with the emergence of different historic blocs and as a result of consequent alterations in state-society relations. The article emphasizes the significance of private corporate power in the construction of the global political economy and hegemonic authority relations. However, the significance of private authority is obscure and little understood by students of international relations. This gives rise to analytical and normative grounds for adopting a historical materialist approach to the analysis of global authority that incorporates national, subnational, and transnational influences.

Gramsci, Law, and the Culture of Global Capitalism

Abstract This essay draws upon Gramsci’s understandings of law and of the philosophy of praxis to develop a critical analysis of international law in the constitution and potential revolutionary transformation of the contemporary global political economy. The analysis illustrates the analytical utility of Gramscian conceptions of historical bloc and hegemony in capturing the significance of international law as an effective historical force. It also extends these conceptions, theoretically, by arguing that the global political economy is undergoing a process of juridification in which a commodified legal form provides the template for economic and political regulation. The commodity form theory of law is presented as the key to understanding the significance of international law under the culture of global capitalism.

Problematizing Corporate Social Responsibility under Conditions of Late Capitalism and Postmodernity

We are said to be witnessing a transformation in political authority associated with a revolution in the global activities of corporations. The ‘corporate social responsibility movement’ is heralded as revolutionary in providing enhanced corporate accountability in international commerce. This movement is widely regarded by students of business, law, and politics as an innovative dimension of global governance that is contributing to greater sociality in the global political economy (Ougaard 2006; Testy 2002; Haufler 2001, 2006). Indeed, John Ruggie (2004), the former Assistant to the Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), and a major architect of the UN Global Compact, which seeks to govern corporations through voluntary commitments to socially responsible practices, regards the movement as evidence of a new ‘transnational public sphere’ and a new non-state-based public space. Comprised of statements of best practices, codes of conduct, standards, and voluntary arrangements concerning corporate labour, human rights, environmental, and governance practices, the corporate responsibility movement is seen as governing corporate behaviour at home and abroad, whilst also opening up space for broader participation and the articulation of a variety of social concerns that are not routinely addressed in corporate decision-making. For Ruggie, this signals the provision of much needed public goods and the articulation of an incipient global civil society and global public sphere.

Canadian foreign policy and international economic regimes

Acknowledgements Introduction Part One: Regulation of International Trade 1. The Evolution of Canadian Postwar International Trade Policy / Jock A. Finlayson, with Stefano Bertasi 2. Reflections on the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement in the Context of the Multilateral Trading System / Christopher Thomas 3. Canada and the Ongoing Impasse over Agricultural Protectionism / Theodore H. Cohn 4. Canada and the Private International Trade Law Regime / A. Claire Cutler Part Two: Regulation of International Financial Transactions 5. Canadian Foreign Investment Policy: Issues and Prospects / James A. Brander 6. Canada and International Legal Regimes for Foreign Investment and Trade in Services / Robert K. Paterson 7. Canada and the International Monetary Regime / Michael C. Webb Part Three: Regulation of International Service Industries 8. Canada and the Changing Regime in International Air Transport / Martin E. Dresner and Michael W. Tretheway 9. Canada and the Evolving System of International Shipping Conferences / Trevor D. Heaver 10. Canada and the Movement Towards Liberalization of the International Telecommunications Regime / Steven Globerman, Hudson N. Janisch, Richard J. Schultz, and W.T. Stanbury Part Four: International Regulation of Resources and the Environment 11. The Evolution of Canadian Fisheries Management Policy Under the New Law of the Sea: International Dimensions / Gordon R. Munro 12. Air, Water, and Political Fire: Building a North American Environmental Regime / Don Munton and Geoffrey Castle Closing Perspective 13. Changing Multilateral Institutions: A Role for Canada / Sylvia Ostry Notes Contributors Index

Public meets private: The international unification and harmonisation of private international trade law

(1999). Public meets private: The international unification and harmonisation of private international trade law. Global Society: Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 25-48.