International Economic Law in the 21st Century: Constitutional pluralism and multilevel governance of interdependent public goods

The state-centred 'Westphalian model' of international law has failed to protect human rights and other international public goods effectively. Most international trade, financial and environmental agreements do not even refer to human rights, consumer welfare, democratic citizen participation and transnational rule of law for the benefit of citizens. This book argues that these 'multilevel governance failures' are largely due to inadequate regulation of the 'collective action problems' in the supply of international public goods, such as inadequate legal, judicial and democratic accountability of governments vis-a-vis citizens. Rather than treating citizens as mere objects of intergovernmental economic and environmental regulation and leaving multilevel governance of international public goods to discretionary 'foreign policy', human rights and constitutional democracy call for 'civilizing' and 'constitutionalizing' international economic and environmental cooperation by stronger legal and judicial protection of citizens and their constitutional rights in international economic law. Moreover intergovernmental regulation of transnational cooperation among citizens must be justified by 'principles of justice' and 'multilevel constitutional restraints' protecting rights of citizens and their 'public reason'. The reality of 'constitutional pluralism' requires respecting legitimately diverse conceptions of human rights and democratic constitutionalism. The obvious failures in the governance of interrelated trading, financial and environmental systems must be restrained by cosmopolitan, constitutional conceptions of international law protecting the transnational rule of law and participatory democracy for the benefit of citizens.-- Abbreviations xi -- Tables Summarizing ‘Normative Premises’ and Case Law Examples xv -- Table of Cases xvii -- Table of Legal Instruments xxiii -- Introduction and Overview: The Crisis of International Economic Law 1 -- I How Should International Economic Law be Designed in Order to Protect ‘Interdependent Public Goods’ More Effectively? 43 -- II The Emergence of Cosmopolitan IEL Based on Respect for ‘Constitutional Pluralism’ 113 -- III ‘Civilizing’ and ‘Constitutionalizing’ IEL Requires Cosmopolitan Restraints of Public and Private Power 160 -- IV Legal and Political Strategies for Making Multilevel Economic Regulation Consistent with Human Rights 210 -- V Regulating the ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ and ‘Interdependent Public Goods’ Requires Transnational Rule of Law 272 -- VI Transnational Rule of Law Must be Justified by an ‘Overlapping Consensus’ on Principles of Justice 332 -- VII The Need for Constitutional Reforms of the Law of International Organizations: The Example of the World Trading System 372 -- VIII From ‘Constitutional Nationalism’ to Multilevel Judicial Protection of Cosmopolitan Rights in IEL 436 -- Conclusions and Research Agenda for IEL in the Twenty-First Century 486 -- Bibliography of Repeatedly Quoted Books 521 -- Index 52