International law is under pressure from de-legalisation. The process appears as a retreat from the forms, practices, and institutions of international law, with actors resorting to rules with a lower degree of obligation or even openly challenging the coercive authority of international institutions. Although de-legalisation has recently received less attention because of the focus on international law’s overt failures in Gaza and Ukraine, de-legalisation remains a key dynamic associated with
discourses of backlash and crisis in the global legal order. However, the negative association of the de-legalisation process with pessimistic readings of the trajectory of international law belies the complex way de-legalisation unfolds, as well as the
varied and often paradoxical impacts which it has on the reshaping of the global legal order. More specifically, in this paper I query how the desire for more law and the increased engagement with legal forms of governance interacts with, and even facilitates, the de-legalisation process. The paper explores how private transnational governance actors, such as quasi-judicial tribunals or corporate grievance mechanisms, increasingly invoke international law, its norms and formal structures, to develop their own regulatory systems. On the face of it, such normative ‘translation’ runs counter to the trend of de-legalisation. However, the paper problematises to what extent such a straight-forward reading of the interaction is tenable. How do such forms of engagement impact de-legalisation dynamics? Do they offer a new pathway for the diffusion of legality? And do they reflect a contemporary reassessment of the role of law within global governance, or are these
engagements simply the utilitarian assertions of power by new hegemons? The paper tackles these questions by conceptualising processes of ‘translation’ of international law into private mechanisms of transnational governance. Drawing on
existing theories of normative transposition between social systems and Latour’s work on translation, the paper puts forward a reading of normative translation as a generative process that produces hybridisation rather than simple transmission of meaning. This, in turn, allows us to analyse instances where international law norms are being utilised within private transnational governance, and to understand what the consequences of such interactions are from the perspective of de-legalisation.

Speaker

Tomáš Morochovič is a SNSF Postdoc.Mobility Fellow at the Edinburgh Law School, University of Edinburgh and a Research Associate at the Global Governance Centre, Geneva Graduate Institute. In his current research project, titled ‘Decoding De-Legalisation: Translations of International Law in Global Governance’, Tomáš explores processes through which norms originating within international law are translated into private mechanisms of transnational governance. Combining theoretical work with qualitative socio-legal research, the project queries the impact of such translation processes on international law as a normative system. He is an associate editor at the Journal of International Dispute Settlement. Tomáš holds a Ph.D. in International Law (summa cum laude) from the Geneva Graduate Institute, LL.M. in International Human Rights Law from the University of Exeter, and LL.B. in Law from King’s College London. His research interests are primarily in transnational legal theory and the dynamics of human rights protection in a globalised context.

CHAIR

James Hollway, Director, Global Governance Centre

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