Global Justice and Sectoral Justice in World Society. Moments of Universality in the Lex Mercatoria

Abstract

The structural differentiation and globalization of modern world society creates, at a normative level, a tension between criteria of global justice and multiple forms of sectoral justice related to differentiated social fields such as commerce, sports, and finance among others. Contemporary theories of global justice, as well as classical theories on national state law, have reacted rather skeptically toward these new developments of sectoral justice because of their legitimatory deficits. In analyzing the so-called lex mercatoria, this article argues that global and sectoral justice become strongly intertwined by means of different moments of normative universality, that means, limitative and constituent principles of sectoral justice. In this regard, global and sectoral justice are interpreted as non-antagonist, complementary forms of global law in world society.