Michael B. Likosky

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.

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.

From attacks on oil infrastructure in post-war reconstruction Iraq to the laying of gas pipelines in the Amazon Rainforest through indigenous community villages, infrastructure projects are sites of intense human rights struggles. Many state and non-state actors have proposed solutions for handling human rights problems in the context of specific infrastructure projects. Solutions have been admired for being lofty in principle; however, they have been judged wanting in practice. This book analyzes how human rights are handled in varied contexts and then assesses the feasibility of a common international institutional solution under the auspices of the United Nations to the alleged problem of the inability to translate human rights into practice.

From attacks on oil infrastructure in post-war reconstruction Iraq to the laying of gas pipelines in the Amazon Rainforest through indigenous community villages, infrastructure projects are sites of intense human rights struggles. Many state and non-state actors have proposed solutions for handling human rights problems in the context of specific infrastructure projects. Solutions have been admired for being lofty in principle; however, they have been judged wanting in practice. This book analyzes how human rights are handled in varied contexts and then assesses the feasibility of a common international institutional solution under the auspices of the United Nations to the alleged problem of the inability to translate human rights into practice.