Claire Cutler's critical analysis of the role that international economic law plays in the creation and maintenance of global power relations examines the historical and contemporary evolution of merchant law. She concludes that private interests have governed global economic relations through practices that are little understood. Interdisciplinary in scope, this study draws upon international relations and law, international political economy and political and legal theories. It will be an important first step toward developing a critical understanding of the political foundations of transnational merchant law.

A. Claire Cutler is Associate Professor of International Relations and Law at the University of Victoria, British Columbia. She is joint editor of Private Authority and International Affairs (1999) and Canadian Foreign Policy and International Economic Regimes (1992).

1. Introduction; 2. Conceptualizing the role of law in the global political economy; 3. Theorizing the role of law in the global political economy; 4. Medieval Lex Mercatoria; 5. State-building: constituting the public sphere and disembedding the private sphere; 6. The modern law merchant and the Mercatocracy; Conclusion: transnational merchant law and global authority: a crisis of legitimacy; Bibliography.