Abstract
The notion of a transnational law has been under dispute for several decades. After Philip Jessup coined the phrase in his widely-known Storrs Lecture on Jurisprudence at the Yale Law School in 1956, it has been used in numerous contexts. One of the most influential narratives of transnational law is the one that equates transnational law with a “new law merchant”. In this context, transnational rules are seen as a source of law for cross-border trade law which exists as a third form of law besides national and international law. It is created by arbitrators but also by internationally acting private rule- and standard-setting organizations such as the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) that creates and administers standard terms such as the International Commercial Terms (INCOTERMS) or the Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credits (UCP). There are a number of organizations which – just like the ICC – create rules and standards that in some cases are more important for cross-border trade than national or international laws.
This article is based on previous works, especially on my Ph.D. thesis, Maurer, Lex Maritima (2012).
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- 1.
Luhmann, Law as a social system (2004) 490.
- 2.
For the details of the term “transnational law” see Zumbansen, Transnational Law, in: Encyclopedia of Comparative Law, ed. by Smits (2006) 738–754. See also Calliess, Law, Transnational, in Encyclopedia of Global Studies, ed. by Juergensmeyer/Anheier (2012).
- 3.
Maritime law, however, has already been described as an example of law without the state. See Tetley, The General Maritime Law – The Lex Maritima, Syracuse Journal of International Law and Commerce 20 (1994) 105–145; and Tetley, International Maritime Law, Tulane Maritime Law Journal 24 (2000) 775–856.
- 4.
Basedow, Perspektiven des Seerechts, Juristenzeitung (1999) 9–15.
- 5.
Basedow (supra n. 4) p. 12 et seq.
- 6.
McKenzie, Maritime Services, ed. International Financial Services London Research (2009) 8.
- 7.
See Miller, Lloyd’s Standard Form of Salvage Agreement “LOF 1980”: A Commentary, Journal of Maritime Law and Commerce 12 (1981) 243–261, 248 et seq.
- 8.
See also McKenzie (supra n. 6) 8 (table 5) and 9 (table 6).
- 9.
This number is based on the information given during an interview with the managing director of the SMA.
- 10.
Tassios, Choosing the Appropriate Venue: Maritime Arbitration in London or New York?, Journal of International Arbitration 21 (2004) 355–366, 355 and 359.
- 11.
See for this development Marrella, Unity and Diversity in International Arbitration: The Case of Maritime Arbitration, American University Law Review 20 (2005), 1055–1100, 1077 (“It […] reveals the widespread turn to arbitration and, therefore, the spinning off from domestic jurisdiction in the main sectors of the shipping business.”).
- 12.
Hunter, Standard Forms – The BIMCO Experience, in: Legal Issues Relating to Time Charterparties, ed. by Rhidian (2008) 1–15, 1.
- 13.
According to the BIMCO homepage, members from Belgium, China, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, India, Japan, South Korea, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the USA were part of the Documentary Committee.
- 14.
Hunter (supra n. 12).
- 15.
Ibid., 3.
- 16.
Tetley (1994 supra n. 3) 109. But see also Benedict, The Historical Position of the Rhodian Law, Yale Law Journal 18 (1909) 223–242, who is skeptical of the exact date of the creation of the rules on general average.
- 17.
Foster, General Average – A Unique Indemnifications Feature of Admiralty, North Carolina Central Law Journal 4 (1972) 114–125, 114 et seq.
- 18.
For a general overview on the work of the CMI see Berlingieri, The Work of the Comité Maritime International: Past, Present, and Future, Tulane Law Review 57 (1983) 1260–1273.
- 19.
“The United Nations Commission on International Trade Law, Expressing its appreciation to the International Chamber of Commerce for transmitting to it the revised text of ‘Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credits’ […]; Congratulating the ICC on having made a further contribution to the facilitation of international trade […]; Noting that ‘Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credits’ constitutes a valuable contribution to the facilitation of international trade, Commends the use of the 2007 revision, […] in transactions involving the establishment of a documentary credit.” United Nations, Report of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (2009) 70.
- 20.
Levit, A Cosmopolitan View of Bottom-Up Transnational Lawmaking: The Case of Export Credit Insurance, Wayne Law Review 51 (2005) 1193–1208; Levit, A Bottom-Up Approach to International Lawmaking: The Tale of Three Trade Finance Instruments, Yale Journal of International Law 30 (2005) 125–209; Levit, Bottom-Up International Lawmaking: Reflections on the New Haven School of International Law, Yale Journal of International Law 32 (2007) 393–420; Levit, Bottom-Up Lawmaking through a Pluralist Lens: The ICC Banking Commission and the Transnational Regulation of Letters of Credit, Emory Law Journal 57 (2008) 1147–1225.
- 21.
Levit (2008, supra n. 20) 1155 et seq.
- 22.
Ibid., 1156.
- 23.
Snyder, Private Lawmaking, Ohio State Law Journal 64 (2003) 371–449.
- 24.
Ibid., 405.
- 25.
Ibid., 412.
- 26.
For the notion of “spontaneous law” see: Teubner, Global private regimes: Neo-spontaneous law and dual constitution of autonomous sectors in world society?, in: Globalization and Public Governance, ed. by Ladeur (2000) 1–17.
- 27.
Ibid.
- 28.
Roberts, After Government? On Representing Law Without the State, Modern Law Review 68 (2005) 1–24, 23 (“Negotiated orders have their own rationalities: they involve a different orientation to the normative repertoire from those of state law; decision-making is through agreement, reached through cyclical processes of information exchange and learning, rather than the imposed order of a third party […].”).
- 29.
For that thought see Habermas, Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy (1996) 1 et seq., 287 et seq.
- 30.
Pateman, Participation and Democratic Theory (1970) 122.
- 31.
Archibugi, Cosmopolitan Democracy and its Critics: A Review, European Journal of International Relations 10 (2004) 437–473.
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Ochoa, The Relationship of Participatory Democracy to Participatory Law Formation, Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 15 (2008) 5–18.
- 33.
Ibid., 9 et seq. See also Nye, Globalization's Democratic Deficit, Foreign Affairs 80 (2001) 2–6, 4; arguing that the deficit of democratic legitimacy is reflected in the rule “one state one vote”, which in international lawmaking processes means, for instance, that a citizen of the Maldives has several thousand times the weight of a citizen of India.
- 34.
Ibid., 9 et seq.
- 35.
Ibid., 15. See also for the field of environmental protection Rohrschneider/Dalton, A Global Network? Transnational Cooperation among Environmental Groups, Journal of Politics 64 (2002) 510–533. Besides that, Ochoa is expressly referring to Janet Koven Levit’s research on the UCP, Ochoa (supra n. 32) 17. See also Ochoa, Symposium Introduction: Democracy and the Transnational Sector, Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 15 (2008), pp. 1–3.
- 36.
Ochoa, (supra n. 32) p. 16.
- 37.
Calliess/Zumbansen, Rough Consensus and Running Code. A Theory of Transnational Private Law (2010).
- 38.
Attempts to overcome this paradigm have, for example, been made during the formation process of the Rome Regulations on the European Rules for the conflict of laws. It has been proposed to allow that parties “[…] may also choose as the applicable law the principles and rules of the substantive law of contract recognized internationally or in the Community.” (COM (2005) 650 – final, Art. 3 para 2). For a detailed analysis see Calliess (ed.), Rome Regulations – Commentary on the European Rules of the Conflict of Laws (2011) 65 et seq.
- 39.
Klabbers, Of Round Pegs and Square Holes: International Law and the Private Sector, in Regulatory Hybridization in the Transnational Sphere, ed. by Jurcys/Kjaer/Yatsunami (2013) 29–48, 31.
- 40.
See as an example of one of these studies Malinowski, Crime and Custom in a Savage Society (1926).
- 41.
Merry, Legal Pluralism, Law & Society Review 22 (1988) 869–896.
- 42.
Ibid., 872.
- 43.
In this direction see Macaulay, Private Government, in Law and the Social Sciences, ed. by Lipson/Wheeler (1986) 445–518.
- 44.
Griffiths, What is Legal Pluralism?, Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law 24 (1986) 1–55, 3.
- 45.
Galanter, Justice in many Rooms: Courts, Private Ordering, and Indigenous Law, Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law 19 (1981), 1–47, 12.
- 46.
Teubner, “Global Bukowina”: Legal Pluralism in the World-Society, in Global Law without a State, ed. by Teubner (1997) 3–28.
- 47.
Teubner (ed., supra n. 46).
- 48.
See for that example Lessig, Code and other Laws of Cyberspace (2000) 116 et seq.
- 49.
Goldman, Lex Mercatoria (1983) 3–23.
- 50.
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- 51.
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- 53.
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- 54.
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- 55.
See, for instance, Fischer-Lescano/Teubner, Regime-Collisions: The Vain Search for Legal Unity in the Fragmentation of Global Law, Michigan Journal of International Law 25 (2004) 999–1046; Scheuerman, Reflexive Law and the Challenges of Globalization, Journal of Political Philosophy 9 (2001) 81–102; Rogowski, Reflexive Regulation of Labour and Employment Conflict Resolution, in Soziologische Jurisprudenz, ed. by Calliess/Fischer-Lescano/Wielsch/Zumbansen (2009) 573–585.
- 56.
Fischer-Lescano/Teubner (supra n. 55) 1007.
- 57.
Hoffmann/Maurer, Entstaatlichung der Justiz. Empirische Belege zum Bedeutungsverlust staatlicher Gerichte für internationale Wirtschaftsstreitigkeiten, Zeitschrift für Rechtssoziologie (2010) 279–302.
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Maurer, A. (2015). Transnational Maritime Law. In: Basedow, J., Magnus, U., Wolfrum, R. (eds) The Hamburg Lectures on Maritime Affairs 2011-2013. Hamburg Studies on Maritime Affairs, vol 28. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-55104-8_5
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