UCI Law Prof. Gregory Shaffer’s New Book, Transnational Legal Orders, Presents a Groundbreaking Analysis of Global Economic and Social Norms

Feb. 23, 2015

IRVINE, Calif., Feb. 23, 2015 — The new book by UC Irvine School of Law Prof. Gregory Shaffer and Terence Halliday, Transnational Legal Orders, provides a transformative theory and approach to global law. Published by Cambridge Studies in Law and Society, Transnational Legal Orders has been described in a series of advance reviews by leading scholars across disciplines as “spectacular,” a “landmark” and “path-breaking.”

Shaffer and Halliday offer an empirically grounded theory that reframes the study of law and society. The book begins with the fundamental question: How do transnational legal orders rise and fall in their capacity to constrain and enable behaviors in diverse spheres of social life? What follows is a thoughtful exploration of the framework and boundaries of how law structures these central notions of order.

Transnational Legal Orders presents an original approach to the emergence of legal orders beyond nation-states and shows how they originate, where they compete and cooperate, and how they settle on institutions that legally order fundamental economic and social behaviors that transcend national borders. This original theory is applied and developed by distinguished scholars from North America, Europe and Asia in business law (taxation, corporate, bankruptcy, secured transactions, transport of goods by sea), regulatory law (monetary and trade, finance, food safety, climate change) and human rights law (civil and political rights, rule of law, right to health/access to medicines, human trafficking, criminal accountability of political leaders).

Now available on Amazon, here, Prof. Shaffer will host a conference exploring the book’s themes on May 13-14, 2015, at UC Irvine School of Law, and the book will be the subject of a dedicated panel at the Law and Society annual conference in Seattle, May 28-30, 2015.

About the Authors
Gregory Shaffer is Chancellor's Professor of Law at the University of California, Irvine School of Law. He is vice president of the American Society of International Law and its representative to the American Council of Learned Societies. He directs the Law and Society Association's Collaborative Research Network on Transnational and Global Legal Ordering. Shaffer was chair of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Economic Globalization and Governance in 2014. His other publications include Transnational Legal Ordering and State Change (Cambridge University Press, 2013); Dispute Settlement at the WTO (2011); Regulating Risk in the Global Economy (2008); Defending Interests: Public-Private Partnerships in WTO Litigation (2003); and more than 80 articles and book chapters.

Terence C. Halliday is a co-director of the Center on Law and Globalization and a research professor at the American Bar Foundation. He is the author or editor of numerous books on professions, globalization, law, markets and politics. His articles have appeared in the American Journal of Sociology, the American Sociological Review, the British Journal of Sociology, the Law and Society Review, Law and Social Inquiry, and the Asian Journal of Law and Society. He is the winner of multiple prizes from the American Sociological Association for his 2009 book Bankrupt (with Bruce Carruthers). Halliday is the 2013 recipient of the Podgerecki Prize for distinguished scholarship from the International Sociological Association's Research Committee on the Sociology of Law.

About UC Irvine School of Law
UCI Law, which received full accreditation from the ABA effective June 6, 2014, is an innovative law school focused on educating talented and passionate lawyers driven by professional excellence, intellectual rigor and a commitment to enrich our communities through public service. UCI Law is a collegial environment, and our faculty is comprised of accomplished, nationally-ranked thought leaders from around the country with a broad range of expertise. More about the Law School is available at law.uci.edu.