Globalization is both an ‘out there’ and an ‘in here’ phenomenon, blending the distant with the local.1 Furthermore, it is a two-way process. As Anthony Giddens puts it, the globalization process, “link [s] distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa.”2 The universalization of human rights norms and the global liberalization of corporate and commercial endeavour are two especially conspicuous players on the globalization stage. Both, to some extent, rely on the notion of the Rule of Law to promote their ends, though they rely on different features of the notion in so doing–the latter more on “certainty;” the former more on “equality.” In the age of globalisation, a specific and significant trend there are two that stand out—namely, corporate/commercial enterprise and human rights/ humanitarian standard-setting. The corporate/commercial enterprise is characterized by the patent aggrandizement of the power of multinational enterprises, the influence of capital markets,19 and the concomitant expansion of international regimes for trade regulation—such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the EU—and for economic development— such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the regional development banks of Africa, Asia and South America. Human rights standard setting is characterized by the spreading, though not unqualified, acceptance across states of the universality and indivisibility of human rights. It is also characterized by the emergence of new regional human rights regimes beyond the European and American progenitors—that is in Africa, the Arab States and in rudimentary form in Asia. Under the given circumstances, this paper aims to explore the relationship between the globalisation and rule of law in the context of SEZ in the context of acquisition of land. 

Keywords: Globalisation; Rule of Law; SEZ; WTO; Acquisition of Land; Displacement; Rehabilitation and Resettlement; Fair Market Value; Sustainability.