Abstract

Much legal globalization is imposed on the Global South. However, there is a curiosity. Its laws frequently disadvantage local political and economic elites. Furthermore, international organisations have neither the information nor resources to secure performance. This raises the question what happens? Using the example of competition law in Peru, it will be argued that the introduction of such laws forces local actors to decide whether to reform national market structures or consolidate them. Neither market reform nor market consolidation, however, provides sufficient political authority to sustain action. Actors must, therefore, look to wider narratives: in the case of Peru, a narrative of market justice. Consequently, globalization invariably fails on its own terms as a local politics surrounding this other narrative develops these laws. Furthermore, it is this politics that generates many of the benefits and challenges currently associated with legal globalization.

About the speaker

Damian Chalmers has worked at the London School of Economics and Political Science for twenty four years with ten of these as a Professor. He was Head of its European Institute and the Jean Monnet Centre there for four years. He has held Visiting Appointments at the CEU, College of Europe, Copenhagen, EUI, Fundacao Getulio Vargas, Instituto de Empresa, Institute of Advanced Studies Vienna, and Fudan (PRC). He was also a Strauss Fellow at NYU and a Senior Fellow on the British ESRC ‘UK in a Changing Europe’ programme.