NEW LEX MERCATORIA AND MODERN EVOLUTION OF INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL LAW
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32782/klj/2024.1.40Keywords:
modern evolution, trade customs, Lex Mercatoria, legal doctrine, international law, international commercial law, international commercial contract.Abstract
Abstract. On the pages of the scientific paper, the authors consider the modern evolution of International Commercial Law as a ‘third’ legal system. Lex mercatoria is conceptualized as a legal system that exists in parallel with International Private Law and competes with it in terms of regulating cross-border private law relations. It is a vital way to meet the challenges of globalization of the world economy and international trade. Furthermore, lex mercatoria often appears as a kind of symbol sui generis, which guarantees a special, autonomous regime of self-organization of cross-border trade. At the same time, the historical roots of this phenomenon still need to be logically proven and are increasingly being questioned by researchers. The lex communitas as the modern reincarnation of the medieval lex mercatoria is generated by professional trade communities. It extends in the logistics of network methodology far beyond cross-border trade and integrates numerous regulatory non-state regimes, which are formed in various spheres of cross-border private law relations. The lex mercatoria of the 21st century is created on the basis of precedent within the system of International Commercial Arbitration, which allows some scholars to speak on the formation of ‘Arbitral Common Law’. According to the authors, the genesis of the lex mercatoria testifies to the transformation of the medieval lex mercatoria as a set of spontaneously formed customary principles and the rules of simplified settlement of trade disputes in the modern lex mercatoria as a quasi-autonomous regulatory institutional and legal system. This system was purposefully created by professional communities of non-state commercial entities to regulate cross-border private law relations, which is referred to as ‘International Commercial Law’.
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