In the Möbius strip of global economic law: Afterword to the Foreword by Karen Alter

Abstract

Abstract This Afterword emphasizes the analytical value of Karen Alter’s Foreword, which brings together a much-welcomed interdisciplinary syllabus on “law, globalization and capitalism.” The Foreword provides a rich historical account of the almost inexhaustible reservoir of legal techniques through which (colonial or post-colonial) states and firms have managed to secure capitalist-friendly legal environments, as well as asymmetrical rights and prerogatives. It also paints a fresh portrait of global economic law as an inextricable multilayering of national and international, but also public and private, legal regimes—something akin to the Möbius strip, a surface with only one side and no possible distinction between the inside and the outside. This Afterword questions, however, the rather neglected role of sociology in this new syllabus and discusses the political and democratic costs as well as possible ways out of this conundrum.