IECL Seminar Series

Prof. John Cartwright

Codification and the Common Law

Edoardo Piermattei 

The Shift and The Shocks: Do International Commercial Courts Convey a New Lex Mercatoria in Europe?

The international business community's ‘slow stifling’ to overcome legal fragmentation beyond the boundaries of nation-states has been in the spotlight of academic writings for about half a century. Despite this trend, since the divergence of legal norms and trade customs proved an impediment to profit in the post-globalization era, lex mercatoria is being reborn in a new guise drawing on dispute resolution mechanisms’ expertise and capacity-building support. 

In this light, the research considers the underlying dynamics and the main tenets of the International Commercial Courts, pursuing the question of whether it is accurate to describe them as a better place to affect the meaningful unification of a truly commercial law in Europe and beyond. Then, the discussion sheds a critical view on how these institutions work collectively as ‘mosaic tiles’ to promote a new wave of explanatory commercial law’s harmonization, anchored around a global rule of law and a network of institutions capable of sustaining a convergence process.