Law, World

In general terms, world law is law that is the same throughout the world. It thus encompasses any rule having, regardless of its legal source, a global scope of application and consequently claiming universal normativity. The terminology varies: Along with the concept of world law, the ideas of common law of all mankind, law of humanity, global law, and transnational law have been introduced.

Notwithstanding clear theoretical distinctions and different practical consequences, all of these conceptualizations can be traced back to one common baseline notion: The formerly sharp separation of the domestic and the international spheres—and in parallel an understanding of international law as largely intergovernmental in nature—is replaced by a new matrix: the global legal space. The ongoing globalization of everyday life does not find a sufficient normative infrastructure in either traditional state law or traditional international law. The global legal space, itself being an emerging pattern of global governance, provides for an infrastructural model, based on global legal paradigms, to redress these shortcomings. It comprises all of these regulatory fields, which typically transcend the boundaries of a nation-state, or the regulation thereof at least causes transboundary regulatory effects. It furthermore displays a multilayered structure of regulatory schemes.

Globalization not only has led to a broad transfer of policy-making authority from the sovereign nation-state to actors “beyond” but also has created transnational networks of public as well as private, institutional, as well as individual actors who generate, interpret, and apply rules of a new transnational quality. The more hybrid the [Page 1040]aforementioned actors turn out to be, the more urgent become democratically legitimate and transparent monitoring/reviewing mechanisms to safeguard the relevant lawmaking processes. In summary, the idea of combining all regulations with a transboundary dimension into a common legal scheme that would create a “world law,” transforming traditional international law, would meet the needs of global humanity. The goal is a Hegelian Weltgeist, a Kantian Weltbürgertum (cosmopolitan citizenship), a form of world politics or world order. The world law concept should not be understood in a static way, however, but as a step-by-step process to develop a basic legal order for all mankind.