From normative pyramide to global law: The legal validity of transnational norms

The role of private authorities in norm generation at both local and global levels should be examined in terms of their legal character and legitimacy. The center of legal norm production was shifted towards a polycentric system involving private authorities as a vital part of the process as the nation states already are. The classical theoretical approaches to legal validity do not fully explain these new production processes. To close this theoretical gap, it is necessary to the theoretical frameworks that are based on sociology. Within this context, the problematic is handled in the context of legal pluralism. According to that approach, the main actor of norm production is now global civil society. Moreover, in the light of Niklas Luhmann's theoretical framework that is called "General Systems Theory", the whole legal structure can be redefined. Thus, a radical approach concerning the validity of legal norms which is derived from Luhmann's theory, will guide us to explain why global legal order should be considered legitimate just as the ones created by the nation states.