Law of the global economy: in need of a new methodological approach?

The starting question of this chapter is whether International Economic Law (IEL) should also be under- stood as a branch of economic law, and not only as a branch of international law. This Chapter argues that only by considering IEL as a branch of economic law can a comprehensive view be gained, and thus also acquire a proper understanding, of the law affecting the global economy. But this perspective needs a ‘new’ methodological approach, one that cuts across the boundaries between legal systems (eg national, regional, international and transnational) and across those between traditional fields of law (eg constitutional, commercial and procedural law). The international law methodological approach, premised on the old paradigm of the Nation-state, lacks the necessary comprehensiveness to achieve a truly comprehensive understanding of the global economy. International law fails in this regard because it is limited through its focus on ‘its’ sources of law, omitting other rules that can be as much, and sometimes more, relevant to the regulation of the global economy.