“When we think of these issues in global politics, contemporary trade and investment rules and procedures can be viewed as a counterpart to the liberal Rule of Law on a multilateral basis.  Thus quintessential new constitutional frameworks include multilateral investment agreements and bilateral investment treaties, and these can be understood as forward looking ‘commitment mechanisms’ or ‘disciplines’.  These agreements have quasi-constitutional status at the global level in key aspects of economic and political life – in ways that subordinate the state to elements of civil society, in this case investors and private corporations.  Thus new constitutionalism is a liberal global political project par excellence, indeed it is the primary political project of globalisation today.” 

                                                                                            --Stephen Gill, “The Constitution of Global Capitalism,” Paper for International Studies

                                                                                                Association, 2000.