Global lawmaking by international organizations holds the potential for enormous influence over world trade and national economies. Representatives from states, industries, and professions produce laws for worldwide adoption in an effort to alter state lawmaking and commercial behaviors, whether of giant multinational corporations or small and medium-sized businesses. Who makes that law and who benefits affect all states and all market players. In Global Lawmakers: International Organizations in the Crafting of World Markets (Cambridge University Press), Susan Block-Lieb and co-author Terence C. Halliday present the first extensive empirical study of commercial lawmaking within the United Nations. They compellingly show who makes law for the world, how they make it, and who comes out ahead.
Professor John Braithwaite of Australian National University called Global Lawmakers “a magnificent book on who makes the commercial law of the world, and how. Beautifully written, its pages present an ethnography of transnational legal orders and insurgent orders.”
Sigrid Quack of Universität Duisburg-Essen said, “This book will be required reading for scholars and practitioners in international relations, global governance, socio-legal research, organization studies and related fields.”