How is law diffused globally?

Karoline Kilvik
Ins Gaspar
Thomas Verborgh
Francisco Almeida
Sarah Cheddadi
Maria Temudo
Introduction
Which actors contribute to the global diffusion of law ?
Individuals and mass movements
International organizations and NGOs
States and heads of governments
Companies and corporative organizations
Courts
Individuals and mass movements
Malala Yousafzai
Activist for female education
BBC Urdu blog
2013 UN speech
2014 Nobel Peace Prize
2015 Time Magazine One of the
most influential people globally.
The Malala Fund
 Women2drive movement
Saudi Arabia
Facebook, YouTube and Twitter
Human rights violations in Saudi
Arabia
The country has not signed several
human rights treaties
Put pressure on the government
Businesses and corporations
Business actors diffusing global law:
1. Shaping the behaviour of states and international organizations
2. Shaping regulation directly
3. Shaping regulation by regulating other businesses or states
Shaping Regulation Directly
Globalizing self-regulatory practice global regulatory norms
Modelling: centuries old
Lex Mercatoria new version International Chamber of
Commerce Arbitration
Standard-writing?
Shaping regulation by regulating other
businesses or states
E.g.: Socit Gnrale de Surveillance
Global Administrative Law
Global Administrative Law

Congregation of different actors:

Informal interstate organizations with no treaty basis
Formal interstate institutions affecting third parties through administrative-
type actions
National public regulators whose actions have external effects but may not be
controlled by the central executive body
Etc...
International organizations

Genuine global public administrations because they:

Set their own norms and regulate their field of activity
Generate and follow their own particular legal proceedings
Can grant participatory rights to subjects, both public and private,
affected by their activities
Special focus on Environmental Law

Environmental structures
Eco-labels
Energy taxes
Legal provisions regulating the free access to information
Environmental strategies
Definition: Comprehensive governmental programs of action which
are developed with the participation of a wide range of societal
actors and which formulate medium and long-term goals for an
economically and socially sound environmental policy
UN Conference for Environment and Development
Eco-labeling
Definition: The practice of labeling products based on a wide range of
environmental considerations in order to make relevant
environmental information available to consumers, which enable
them to orient their purchasing decisions to environmental
characteristics of the product, which in turn may prompt producers
to devote more attention to environmental attributes in the product
design
Energy Taxes
Definition: market-based environmental policy instruments that tax
energy consumption or production. Their overarching goal is to
reduce CO2 emissions from the use of fossil fuel in energy production
and thereby mitigate climate change.
Free Access to Information
Definition: Legal provisions on free access to information (FAI)
regulate citizens' access to information held by public authorities.
They increase the transparency and accountability of administrative
action by ensuring the availability, comparability and public
accessibility of relevant information
1st phase: slow spread of general FAI provisions
2nd phase(1991): significant and sudden acceleration in the
international spread
Diffusion processes in the emergence of
international environmental regimes
Horizontal diffusion
Vertical diffusion
International actors

Response to an international norm which, promoted by

international policy processes, increasingly became recognized
and internalized by policymakers
Courts
Globalization affect both national and supranational levels:
National courts are influenced by supranational courts case law
Example: national courts of the EU Member States have to comply
with the interpretation and decisions of the Court of Justice of the
European Union (Art. 267 TFEU: preliminary rulings)
Supranational courts can be influenced by national or regional
courts decisions
Example: based on Art. 21(1)(c) Rome Statute, when the Statute is
unclear or obscure, the ICC may consider general principles, which
are distilled from the different legal systems.

Development of a community of courts

Common features of cross-fertilisation process among
courts:

1. Influence works in many directions

2. Process is interactive
3. Judges have new motivations for drawing from other
courts
4. Courts are beginning to construct a self-conscious
community

Is it likely that courts will apply a common set of global laws?

No.
Conclusion
Sources
https://www.malala.org/malalas-story
https://womensrights.informationactivism.org/en/cases/women2dr
ive-saudi-arabia
Slaughter, Anne-Marie. 2003. A Global Community of
Courts. Harvard International Law Journal 44:191-219