CIL Supported Seminar: Law-Makers and Law-Takers Under the New Rules and Institutions of Global Regulatory Governance

Introduction

An extraordinary variety of global regulatory bodies now generate and apply regulatory norms and decisions, which affect individuals, businesses, state regulatory  agencies,  and  national  policy choices.  Examples include the Financial   Action  Task  Force  know-your-customer  and  cash  transaction reporting  requirements  for  banks, World Trade Organization rules on what national  product standards are allowable and the administrative procedures by which they must be applied, Basel Committee rules on capital adequacy of banks  and  the  increased flow of International Accounting Standards Board and  Financial  Stability  Board  norms,  regulatory  decisions  of  the UN Commission  on  the  Outer  Limits  of  the  Continental  Shelf or regional fisheries  commissions.   Many standards come from non-governmental bodies, such as the International Organization for Standardization, ICANN internet standards, the International Olympic Committee and WADA (anti-doping), or standards set for ships not only by the International Maritime Organization but also by classification societies and insurers.   This  growth  of regulatory   authority  and  activity  beyond  the  state  is  increasingly significant   for   business   and  government  lawyers,  and  will  figure increasingly not only in international litigation and arbitration, but also in   national   court   proceedings.    It   has   outstripped traditional international law theory centred on state action and inter-state agreement. It also challenges the adequacy of national law mechanisms.  Major issues arise  about  transparency  and  participation in this kind of rule-making, about  the  proper  roles of different review mechanisms, about how to hold transnational  regulatory  bodies  accountable,  and  how to determine what weight  should  be  given to such norms in national law and national courts and  in  other  international  bodies.  Some  national governments (and the European  Union)  and  their  agencies  have  great  influence  over  these processes;  on some issues, particular industry groups or NGOs have special influence.   Most other governments and affected interests or publics have little choice but to take the rules as they find them, or try to opt-out which can be very costly or impossible in practice.

This lecture surveyed these   major   problems,   and   introduced  the  new  concept  of  Global Administrative  Law,  which  is  the  subject of a major project at NYU Law School  with  well over 100 papers already published. Global Administrative Law provides a powerful way to analyze, critique, and potentially to change specific global regulatory structures and the outcomes they produce.

About the Speaker

Benedict Kingsbury is Murry and Ida Becker Professor of Law and Director of the Institute for International Law and Justice at New York University School of Law (iilj.org).  With Richard Stewart, he initiated and directs the  IILJ’s  Global  Administrative  Law  Research  Project,  a  pioneering approach  to  issues  of  accountability,  transparency,  participation and review  in  global governance, in which over 100 papers have been published since 2005.   In 2009 they launched the worldwide Global Administrative Law Network of research institutions with a conference at Tsinghua Law School in Beijing.   Together with anthropology professor Sally Engle Merry and development law professor Kevin Davis, Kingsbury has recently launched the IILJ’s new project on Indicators as a Technology of Global Governance.  He also  co-directs  NYU  Law  School’s  Program  in the History and Theory of International   Law,   with   Robert  Howse  and  Global  Professor  Martti Koskenniemi.   He is a New Zealand citizen, and received his LL.B (First Class Hons) from the University of Canterbury.  Kingsbury previously held a permanent   teaching  position  at  Oxford  University  (where  he  earlier completed  an  M.Phil  in  International  Relations  supervised by the late Hedley  Bull, and a D.Phil in Law supervised by the late Ian Brownlie), and has  been  a  visiting  professor  at Harvard Law School, the University of Tokyo  Law  Faculty, the University of Padua, and the University of Paris-I (Pantheon-Sorbonne).   Kingsbury’s  research  and  publications  reflect  a commitment  to  a  broad,  theoretically-grounded approach to international law,  closely  integrating work in legal theory, political theory, history, and   global   governance.   His  recent  articles  address  investor-state arbitration   (he   has   written   expert   opinions   in  several  recent arbitrations),  the  past  and  future  of  international  courts  (in  the Cambridge   Companion   to   International  Law,  ed.  J  Crawford  and  M. Koskeniemmi),   global   governance  issues  in  national  courts  (in  the Festschrift  for  ICJ  Judge Sir Kenneth Keith), and ‘The Concept of Law in Global  Administrative  Law’ (European Journal of International Law, 2009). His  recent  co-edited books include The Challenge of Global Administrative Law  in  Latin  America (2009, in Spanish); Climate Finance: Regulatory and Funding  Strategies  for  Climate Change and Global Development (NYU Press, 2009, with Richard Stewart and Bryce Rudyk), and two books on Oxford jurist Alberico Gentili (1545-1608) currently in press with OUP.