A Question for Unification

EBay has recently been sued by several manufacturers of luxury goods over counterfeits on their site. The manufacturers feel that eBay should be responsible for policing the site to stop people from selling these counterfeited items.

However you feel on this, I'm sure that everyone would agree that this is a legitimate and non-frivolous lawsuit. The problem for eBay is not really the result of the lawsuit, but which court to obey.

See, these types of lawsuits have been lodged against eBay in both the U.S.A and France. The French courts have repeatedly come down against eBay, while the US court came down in favor of them. EBay is appealing the decision in France, but what if the appeal fails? Could the French force eBay to change its practices worldwide? Unlikely, but the prospect must be making many companies worried.

This exposition brings me to my question: which nation's courts will ultimately have power in a fully globalized economy? The correct answer is no nation should have ultimate judicial authority in these types of disputes. The UN has the International Court of Justice, and there's also the World Trade Organization. But these bodies deal with nations themselves, and not businesses.

I think what we will start to see in the coming decades is a move towards a world "supreme court" designed not for nations but for regular people and corporations. Such a court would theoretically have ultimate judicial authority over all people and all companies. Such a court would also need to be accompanied by equally global legislative and executive branches. Will it ever happen? I think so. Will it happen during my lifetime? Probably not. But we will start to make progress towards this goal, even if it's only motivated by economics.