The Vedanta challenge to multilateralism: Piercing the boundaries of the global legal order - Afterword to the Foreword by Karen Alter

In this Afterword, I expand Alter's argument on multilateralism and colonialism, and argue that the emergence of multilateralism per se (and not only international economic law) played a pivotal role in facilitating global markets through its allocation of governance and coordination costs as well as responsibility between sovereign authorities. I then follow Alter's lead by turning to the contemporary legal arrangements beyond multilateralism and analyzing the role of the sovereign veil, the corporate veil, and the contract veil in constituting the contemporary global economic order. Finally, I revisit Vedanta Resources PLC v. Lungowe (2019) as a model for value-chain liability. I argue that Alter's historical reading of the contemporary economic order provides a powerful lens through which to evaluate the normative significance and limitations of Vedanta and similar transnational legal endeavors.