Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon: Keynote lecture delivered at the 3rd Judicial Roundtable on Commercial Law

The key messages of the lecture delivered by Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon at the 3rd Judicial Roundtable on Commercial Law on 29 September 2021 are:

1. The law has been a force that has helped to sustain globalisation by bringing structure and order to an increasingly interconnected world. But globalisation also has serious conceptual and distributive issues almost all of which will not be easy to address or correct, and some of which are in fact contributed to by the failings of the law and legal systems. 

2. Nonetheless, globalisation remains the best if not the only solution to meet the major challenges that confront humanity. Indeed, given our shared history and the evolution of technology, the world is already inextricably intertwined and beyond the point where globalisation can be reversed or disavowed. Even if we renounced multilateral cooperation and deserted its institutions today, all that we would accomplish is to abandon the governance and regulation of the vast, globalised economy to the whims of fate. 

3. If we accept that globalisation is an unescapable reality and offers the best hope for securing humanity’s shared future, then we should confront and overcome the failings of globalisation. In this regard, it will be important for the law, legal institutions, and legal actors to strive towards three objectives: (a) first, to place globalisation on a more sustainable footing; (b) second, to develop a more robust and constructive space for discourse about globalisation; and (c) third, to build legitimacy for all aspects of globalisation.