The International Economic Constitution

• Credit value: 30 credits at Level 7
• Convenor: Professor Michelle Everson
• Assessment: a 4000-word essay (100%)

The main aims of this module are to help you understand and critically assess the antecedents of global, public economic regulation with reference to bodies such as the WTO; supranational, public economic regulation with reference to bodies such as the EU; global, private economic regulation within the lex mercatoria and standardisation bodies such as the Codex Alimentarius; problems of interconnecting jurisdictions within the international global trade regime; and the concept of global democracy within the global economic constitution. You will also identify and critically assess legitimating theories for public and private global trade regimes: supremacy, the economic constitution, mutual recognition, reciprocal action, standardisation, conflict of laws, the regulatory state; particular problems of global trade regimes (scientification, redistributive issues, the growth of a global executive, risk and risk regulation); and particular problems of adjudication within a global trade regime with reference to the WTO panels, ECJ and inter-jurisdictional application of global/supranational norms.

Indicative module syllabus

• The elements of the global constitution: GATT/WTO; supranational organisations (EU/NAFTA/African Union); lex mercatoria; private/public standardisation (eg Codex Alimentarius)
• Theories of global constitutionalism: neo-liberal; ordo-liberal; the regulatory state; supremacy/mutual recognition/reciprocity; conflict of laws
• Adjudication in the global constitution (case studies): risk (BSE, hormones, ‘precaution’); redistribution (Laval, Viking Rüffert); political adjudication between jurisdictions (AIDS)
• The global executive state (expertise in the global economic constitution)
• The democratisation of the global economic constitution