CYIL 2014

SANDERIJN DUQUET – JAN WOUTERS

CYIL 5 ȍ2014Ȏ

On the Authors:

Sanderijn Duquet

is PhD Fellow at the Research Foundation –

Flanders (FWO), the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies and the Institute

for International Law, KU Leuven.

JanWouters

is Full Professor of International Law and JeanMonnet Chair ad personam,

Director, Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies – Institute for International

Law, KU Leuven and Visiting Professor, College of Europe (Bruges), Sciences Po (Paris)

and Luiss University (Rome).

1. Introduction

Public and private actors increasingly interact in transnational settings, where they

are bringing about a web of transnational rules, regulations and standards on issues as

diverse as finance, investment, competition, health, food, social issues, human rights

and information technology.

These processes all form part of global governance, the

study of which draws on interactions across borders among states, citizens, societies

and markets.

Global governance studies show that the analysis of transnational

interactions is an arduous undertaking, partly because of the involvement of a high

number of actors at various levels. These include, together with states and sub-state

entities, intergovernmental organizations, government agencies, private actors,

business enterprises and NGOs.

Furthermore, governance on an international level

is constantly evolving: State and non-state actors opt in or out of global initiatives

and flexibly endorse dynamic standards and declarations.

These processes are also relevant for present-day legal scholarship, as they challenge

long-standing doctrines of international law. While in many areas international

frameworks (multilateral treaties, intergovernmental organizations…) have been well-

established for years, it is remarkable that regulators have resorted to less institutionalized

forms of lawmaking and governance to engage in interaction across national borders.

Koppell, J.,

World Rule. Accountability, Legitimacy, and the Design of Global Governance

, Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 2010, p. 15.

Global governance has been defined as ‘the complex of formal and informal institutions, mechanisms,

relationships, and processes between and among states, markets, citizens and organizations (…)

through which collective interests are articulated, rights and obligations are established, and differences

are mediated’ in Thakur, R., Van Langenhove, L., “Enhancing Global Governance through Regional

Integration” In: Cooper, A.F., Hughes, Ch., De Lombaerde, Ph. (eds),

Regionalisation and Global

Governance. The Taming of Globalisation?.

London: Routledge, 2008, pp. 17-42, at 20; See also Weiss

and Thakur’s definition of global governance: ‘Global governance is the sum of laws, norms, policies,

and institutions that define, constitute, and mediate relations among citizens, society, markets, and the

state in the international arena – the wielders and objects of international public power’, Weiss, T. G.,

Thakur, R.,

Global Governance and the UN: An Unfinished Journey

. Bloomington: Indiana University

Press, 2010, p. 6.

Wallach, L., “Accountable Governance in the Era of Globalization: TheWTO, NAFTA, and International

Harmonization of Standards”,

University of Kansas Law Review

, 2001-2002, Vol. 50, No. 3, pp. 823-866,

at 836-837.

Piilola, A., “AssessingTheories of Global Governance: a Case Study of International Antitrust Regulation”,

Stanford Journal of International Law

, 2003, Vol. 39, No. 2, pp. 207-252, at 207.