Private Legal Transplant: Multinational Enterprises as Proxies of Legal Homogenisation

Abstract

Recent decades have been characterised by a surge in foreign direct investments and the expansion of global production networks as a new model of production. However, while hundreds of studies have been produced, little attention has been paid to the legal transformations that are taking place whenever transnational enterprises (TNEs) physically or contractually occupy space within national legal orders. In this article, I expand the scope of the traditional theory of legal transplant to look at foreign direct investments and codes of conduct, and conclude that they create special legal zones—separate sub-regimes where TNEs exercise their de facto jurisdiction. Thus, looking at the micro-mechanisms of legal reproduction we discover the limitedness of traditional theories of legal transplant and that, while critics of legal transplant stand in front of their houses to fight against the hegemony of legal and cultural homogenisation, their enemy is entering by the back door.