The role of the EU in the transnational governance of standards, contracts and codes

Abstract

In times of worrying nationalism, enquiries into the future of Europe and of EU law often result in arguments about the fragility of the EU to maintain a global leadership role. This edited volume traces the position of the EU (and EU law) in the international arena. In examining the role of the EU in the international regulatory space, we offer an overview of the nature of transnational legal ordering,2 assuming its central regulatory challenge: to balance the dilemma of global governance, namely how to integrate a political discourse, generally local, into a globalised economy. There is a contemporary interest in analysing the impact and influence of the EU’s substantive, procedural and institutional structures on global governance.3 However, the scope of analysis here is narrowed down. The book explores questions of transnational private legal theory in the context of the external dimension of EU private law. The emphasis is placed on non-hard forms of normativity that seem to contribute to the shaping of private law glob-