Description

The emergence and increasing importance of private transnational legal structures in global governance presents a puzzle for legal theory. The notion of autonomous non‐state law runs against the conventional understanding of legal authority, which is committed to the idea of the state as the ultimate locus of legal and political authority. The account given by transnational legal theorists of this phenomenon, which mirrors state‐based constitutional theory by focusing on endogenous processes that take place within the boundaries of private transnational law (PTL) regimes does not seem satisfactory, because it disregards the network embeddedness of such regimes. The speaker proposes a new model for thinking about private transnational legal authority, which conceptualizes it as an emergent, network‐based phenomenon. This thesis breaks a new ground for research in the field of transnational law. The speaker will elaborate the institutional conditions that underlie the emergence of PTL authority, drawing on ideas from network theory, complexity theory (emergence, synergy, and self‐organization), and constitutional theory. He will illustrate the thesis through a multilayered analysis of a large sample of corporate social responsibility codes.

About The Speaker

Oren Perez is the Dean of Bar-Ilan Faculty of Law (from 2017). He also serves as the co-Head of Bar-Ilan MA programme on Environmental Regulation and Policy. He has an LLB (Magna Cum Laude) from Tel Aviv University and LL.M. (1997), Ph.D. (2001) from London School of Economics and Political Science and BA Philosophy from University of London ((First Class Honours) (2015). He primarily works in the fields of Environmental Regulation, Transnational Law, International Trade and Globalization, Torts, Legal Theory and Networks and Law. Among his most recent publications are Oren Perez, Fuzzy Law: A Theory of Quasi-Legal Systems, 28 Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence, July 2015, pp 343 – 370; The Prospects of E-Democracy: An Experimental Study of Collaborative E- Rulemaking (April 14, 2018). 15 Journal of Information Technology & Politics (2018) 278-299; Governance through global networks and corporate signaling. Regulation & Governance (2019); Transnational Networked Constitutionalism, Journal of Law & Society (2018) Pages S135-S162 and The Network of Law Reviews: Citation Cartels, Scientific Communities, and Journal Rankings (August 31, 2018). Modern Law Review, Forthcoming 2018/2019.