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Okwor, Adaora --- "Lex Mercatoria as Transnational Commercial Law: Is the Lex Mercatoria Preferentially for the ‘Mercatocracy’?" [2012] ELECD 364; in Andenas, Mads; Andersen, Baasch Camilla (eds), "Theory and Practice of Harmonisation" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: Theory and Practice of Harmonisation

Editor(s): Andenas, Mads; Andersen, Baasch Camilla

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849800013

Section: Chapter 20

Section Title: Lex Mercatoria as Transnational Commercial Law: Is the Lex Mercatoria Preferentially for the ‘Mercatocracy’?

Author(s): Okwor, Adaora

Number of pages: 10

Extract:

20. Lex Mercatoria as transnational
commercial law: is the Lex
Mercatoria preferentially for the
`mercatocracy'?1
Adaora Okwor*

INTRODUCTION
As traditional boundaries collapse and the globe shrinks, countries are no longer
as discrete as they once were. During the last century, all manner of universal
co-operation among private institutions, governments and businesses have been
necessitated both by technological advancement and other effects of globalisa-
tion. However, increasingly, the traditional conflicts of laws rules and public
international law demonstrate their inadequacies in effectively dealing with the
different kinds of challenges which globalization presents. Consequently, the
lex mercatoria has been controversially publicized as a viable option to these
other traditional legal systems: `the most successful example of global law
without a state'?2
The mercatocracy, described as an elite association engaged in the unifica-
tion and globalisation of transnational merchant law, exercises a predominant
influence `as the organic intellectuals of the transnational capitalist class'.3 This
assertion appears to expose a crisis of representation and legitimacy. The crisis
is in the presumption that if the lex mercatoria truly is global law and therefore
applies transnationally, should it be preferentially elite in its creation and origin?
Surely, this lex mercatoria would be unlike the medieval lex mercatoria which
originated from merchants generally and regulated their commerce irrespective



* Formerly of University of Liverpool, UK.
1
Cutler, CA, Private Power and Global Authority, Cambridge Studies in Interna-
tional Relations, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003), 5.
2
Teubner, G, `Global Bukowina: Legal Pluralism in the ...