THE END OF TRADE AND INVESTMENT LAW AS WE KNOW IT:: FROM SINGULARITY TO PLURALISM

The global trade and investment law regime is disintegrating. It is becoming increasingly impossible to speak of a singular regime spanning the globe; instead there are now several regional-based regimes with quite distinct characteristics. A rethinking of trade and investment law (TIL) needs to take this insight as its point of departure and is possible only by understanding the structural composition and direction world society is taking and the deep-seated cultural and social (including political) structures and contexts within which it operates. Both orthodox and heterodox TIL relies on assumptions concerning the state of the world and the driving forces behind it, but those assumptions need to be subjected to scrutiny and substantial rethinking.