Global Law and Plunder: The Dark Side of the Rule of Law

Ugo Mattei and Marco de Morpurgo
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Ugo Mattei: UC Hastings, University of Turin & IUC Turin
Marco de Morpurgo: International University College of Turin

No 1-10, IUC Research Commons from International University College of Turin

Abstract: The 'rule of law' has traditionally been conceived as an intrinsically positive and politically neutral 'tool', universally valid and capable of being 'exported' everywhere. This paper - which represents a synthetic exposition of the ideas expressed in Ugo Mattei and Laura Nader, Plunder: When the Rule of Law is Illegal (Blackwell Publishing, Oxford 2008) - asserts that such an ambiguous concept has a bright and a dark side, the latter being excluded from any public discussion. The rhetoric of the 'rule of law' has been used by Western powers in order to justify interventions (mainly) into the 'developing' world, that ultimately turned into practices of plunder, allowing the expansion of Western economic power over the 'rest', thus backing a claim that the rule of law has been used 'illegally'. Intellectual myopia, ethnocentrism and imperial attitudes stand behind the conception of the rule of law that currently wraps international financial institutions - today's global legislators - reform projects in the 'developing world'. The transformation of the concept of 'law' into that of a 'technicality', the globally dominant position enjoyed by U.S. law and the imperial attitude of today's Western international corporate actors are some of the elements that show a pattern of continuity between colonialism and today's neo-liberal policy.

Keywords: Imperial Law; Plunder; Ugo Mattei; Structural Adjustment Programmes; Comprehensive Development Frameworks; Law and Economics; Neoliberalism; Neocolonialism; Bocconi Legal Papers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B59 O17 O19 P48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19 pages
Date: 2010-01
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Published in Bocconi School of Law Student-Edited Papers, Paper No. 2009-03/EN

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