Re-embedding the disembedded - The environmental standard of multinational concern in global governance architecture

Globalization is associated with a decline of the nation state's capacity to regulate the economy, but at the same time, a variety of private governance mechanisms has emerged in the lacunas of the prevailing legal and institutional order. Compared to previous forms of private self-regulation on the national level, these structures feature a new degree of autonomy, which has led to a broad debate on a >> Global Law without a State << and phenomena of informal and 'disembedded' norm-making. The article deals with the case of environmental protection in multinational enterprises, reconstructing the governance mechanisms in a transit from the published codes and guidelines further to the micro processes on the shop floor. The analysis is conducted from a socio-legal view, scrutinizing the emergent governance mechanisms under aspects of effectivity as well as under the aspect of possible legal references - and thus evaluating the chances of re-embedding them into the institutional system.