Beyond the national. The rise of global law
Professor Neil Walker from Edinburgh Law School has discussed the rise of global interconnected law such as United Nations human rights law and World Trade Organisation law at Southampton Law School’s Centre of Law, Ethics and Globalisation's (CLEG) Annual Lecture, sponsored by Hart Publishing.
He says the concept of global law, with no external or internal boundaries, is becoming increasingly important with the rise of more global institutions including law schools and legal practices but local law is still relevant in many jurisdictions.
Modern law students regard law in a wider context, he argues. When he was at law school, he first learned Scots law, then English, then European law in a block, but lawyers now increasingly consider law within a global frame of reference as part of their studies of the different fields of law.
Neil Walker is Regius Professor of Public Law and the Law of Nature and Nations in Edinburgh; his main area of expertise is constitutional theory. He has published extensively on the constitutional dimension of legal order at sub-state, state, supranational and international levels, as well as on questions of the relationship between security, legality and civility.