Die Verfassung des globalen Handels (A04)

• Subject Area: Private Law
• Term: from 2003 to 2014
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5485778

The transdisciplinary sub-project A4 deals with transformations of the state in its rule of law dimension triggered by the globalization of commerce. With its private law regime the nation state creates legal certainty and justice for domestic trade. Since the 1970s increasingly an incongruity between territorially binding law and the transnationalization of economic exchange processes (globalization) has evolved. In this context, the globalization as a driving force of the internationalization of private law is scrutinized. In doing so, the role and interdependence of both private and public institutions are focused. The reluctance of the OECD world as well as ICT are considered as frame-giving forces of the privatization of commercial law. In this context the changing functions, duties and responsibilities of the state in the emerging transnational private law are analyzed.The discussion on driving and frame-giving forces is part of the core question of the second research phase (2007-2010): What is the function of the national private law regime for globalized exchange processes and which functional equivalents were created by private actors? In order to respond to the research question, long-term evolutionary processes and institutional inertia are taken into account. To this end, an integrative approach for explaining the transnationalization of commercial law based on evolutionary theory is to be developed. Four case studies on the determinants of the dynamics of the transformation process will be conducted for the purpose of empirical validation.In the first research phase (2003-2006), supervised by Volkmar Gessner, empirical surveys on the governance of transnational trade in the timber industry and in the software industry were conducted. Moreover, the role of mid-sized law firms in structuring international transactions was empirically scrutinized. In international commerce a diffusion of responsibility for the production of the normative good of legal certainty could be observed: Different modes of private ordering play an important role, but the interplay of public and private governance mechanisms turned out to be crucial.The question remains how the observed development towards a transnational commercial law can be explained by material, ideational and institutional forces. The research will focus upon: -modern information and communication technologies as material forces, -competition policy developments and social political purposes of protecting the weaker as well as public policy as ideational institutional forces, -public infrastructure as institutional force, which make public legal services more competitive in global trade.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 597: Transformations of the State
• Applicant Institution: Universität Bremen
• Project Heads: Professor Dr. Gralf-Peter Calliess; Professor Dr. Jörg Freiling