Michael Likosky examines the continuities and discontinuities between colonial and present-day high tech transnational legal orders. His concern is specifically with the colonial characteristics of the legal order which underpins the global high tech economy. He distinguishes the democratic and human rights rhetoric of this economy from a reality wherein the legal order is often used to reproduce colonial-type relationships. Just as in the colonial period, the expansion of trans-border commerce overlaps with democratic demands and human rights in complex, multifaceted and paradoxical ways. Through a case study looking at Malaysia's Multimedia Super Corridor, a high tech national development plan and foreign direct investment scheme, he examines how the transnational leaders of the high tech economy along with the Malaysian political elite react when human rights problems threaten to derail commercial plans.

Contents: Foreword; Introduction: cultural imperialism and transnational commerce. Dual Legal Orders: Variation and oligarchic states; Compound corporations; Dual legal orders. High Tech Promises: Proto-Malaysia; Infrastructure for commerce; Culture for commerce; Human rights and commerce; Conclusion: where we are and how we might move forward; Bibliography; Subject index; Index of law cases.

About the Author: Dr Michael B. Likosky is at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, UK.

Reviews: 'Likosky's is much more than a descriptive history. His account proposes a new socio-legal approach to the development material. He sets forth several innovative ideas for the analysis of development in post-colonial states…The value of the book does not rest on its concluding call for global ethical action, as commendable as that may be, but on its insightful analysis of the socio-legal conditions that underlie transnational commerce, and on its clarifying contribution of general concepts.' Professor Sally Falk Moore, Harvard University, USA (from the Foreword)

'Likosky deciphers the transnational legal system and reveals its particular internal borders. This is not a seamless space, but one that neutralizes existing constraints to the flows of power and builds new containment walls for "undesirable" flows such as the human rights regime.' Saskia Sassen, author of Losing Control? Sovereignty in an Age of Globalization

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Introduction