ULRICH BECK'S COSMOPOLITANISM AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH TRANSNATIONAL LAW. ON THE DANGERS TO SOVEREIGNTY BY TRANSNATIONALITY CONVERTED INTO SUPRANATIONALITY

Abstract

This article examines Ulrich Beck's theory of methodological cosmopolitanism, confronting it with contemporary developments in Transnational Law and the inherent risks of converting transnationality into supranationality. Drawing on Beck's sociology of global risk, the article argues that cosmopolitanism is not a mere philosophical utopia, but a structural response to the insufficiencies of the Nation-State in the face of the systemic risks of reflexive modernity. However, the article contends that the legal response to cosmopolitanism faces internal tension when transnational governance hypertrophies into supranational structures endowed with binding power and democratic deficit. The concepts of porous sovereignty, legal polycentrism and cosmopolitan legitimacy are analysed, concluding that Transnational Law must be understood as a normative space of coordination rather than subordination, lest it reproduce, on a global scale, the vices of state centralism it seeks to overcome.