Iconic asymmetries of our times: “Super Highways” and “jungle tracks” in transnational access to justice

Drawing from Hartley’s ‘Multinational Corporations and the Third World: A Conflict-of-Laws Analysis’ where he exposes the ‘unequal fight’ between powerful multinational corporations and the people and communities in ‘the third world’, suggesting that this is partly a consequence of the deficits of legal infrastructures therein, this brief contribution dwells on the global systemic impact of channelling legal proceedings justiciable in the Global South (GS) to courts in the Global North (GN). It takes a private international law and sustainable development perspective and draws attention to the rhetoric and narratives of interdependence between the ‘super highways’ and the ‘jungle tracks’- the illustrations used by Hartley. The main argument taken forward in this paper is that to realise private international law’s contribution to SDG 16 (peace, justice and strong institutions) responsivity is necessary in jurisdictional decision making in this context to enhance access to justice for all in the GS.