Description

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The academic literature within law and elsewhere is replete with works addressing various aspects of globalization, and, within this literature, various theoretical perspectives have been presented. Nevertheless, there is a widely recognized lack of theoretical underpinning for the development of law and globalization. Part of the explanation for this state of affairs is that academic lawyers have tended to borrow from other disciplines rather than work through the consequences for a distinctively legal approach. Another contributory factor is that the explosion of new types of legal phenomena in the global arena has multiplied the issues to address faster than any developing theory can keep up with them. The rationale for this collection of essays is that it brings together a number of disparate and often inchoate concerns about theorizing law in the global context: concerns that may focus on constitutional frameworks or on cultural forces that may be inspired by traditional insights or the transformative power of extra-legal impulses. In other words, it provides a venue for debate, engagement, and the exploration of ideas, which will broaden an understanding of the issues and provide openings for further work in what is a critical area of legal research and scholarship.

About the Author

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Andrew Halpin is Head of School and Professor of Legal Theory at Swansea University School of Law.
Volker Roeben is Professor of Energy Law and Global Regulation at the Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy at the University of Dundee. He is also a professor at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing and a docent at the University of Turku. Formerly, Volker was senior research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative law and Public International Law, and a professor of international law at Swansea University. He has held visiting or part-time posts at the universities of Chicago, Minnesota and West Virginia, and as legal adviser at the Energy Charter Secretariat. He holds degrees from the universities of Kiel, Heidelberg and Berkeley, and the College of Europe. Volker is the author/editor of seven books and forty articles.