Colliding geographies: space at work in global governance

Abstract

How do regulatory frameworks affect the space they are meant to regulate? Borrowing from critical geography, this article argues that regulatory space is not a neutral category. Rather than regulating a given space, regulatory practice collaborates in the very production of such space. One major problematique is that under conditions of transnational constellations geographies of governance are not easily determined. Moreover, the geographical knowledges at work in different regulatory frameworks can differ, so that a regime may construct its regulatory space in such a way that it encompasses phenomena or spaces also encompassed by another regime. At the end of the day, this leads into regime collisions. To neglect this spatial dimension of regulation is to ignore a significant moment in the circulation of power. It is in this respect that the article turns to the geographical knowledge at work in global law. In particular, it combines two ‘newcomer’ topics in IR — critical geography and fragmentation in international law. The aim is to establish a lens for spatial analysis of fragmented legal phenomena, which are of major importance for the study of global governance under conditions of transnational complexity.