This paper examines the role of ‘private' (non-governmental) regulatory programs in assuring the safety of imported products. Focusing particularly on food safety it argues that private regulatory institutions have great capacity to control safety hazards and to implement dynamic systems for...

This article uses the recently negotiated Transpacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) to examine the potential implications of the rise of mega-regional trade agreements (MRTAs) for global environmental governance. Though unlikely to come into force as planned, the TPP represents the state of the...

How to ensure, in democratic states, that those to whom power has been delegated act in line with constitutional norms and values is a perennial, and much explored, question. This article suggests that in analysing how constitutional actors seek to govern regulatory institutions we should...

Two critical questions for the regulatory oversight of nanotechnology are: at what level of government should regulation take place, and what form should regulation take? These questions are intrinsically linked. As to the first, it is widely assumed that national governments are the appropriate...

A new kind of international regulatory system is spontaneously arising out of the failure of international "Old Governance" (i.e., treaties and intergovernmental organizations) to adequately regulate international business. Nongovernmental organizations, business firms, and other actors, singly...

No governor has sufficient capabilities to govern single-handedly; all governors rely on agents, and thus become principals. The "governor's dilemma" results from the tradeoff between agent competence and principal control. Competent agents are difficult to control because their policy...

A new kind of international regulatory system is spontaneously arising out of the failure of international "Old Governance" (treaties and intergovernmental organizations) to adequately regulate international business. NGOs, business firms and other actors, singly and in novel combinations, are...