Implementation in International Business Self‐regulation: The Importance of Sequences and their Linkages
| Author | Tony Porter,Karsten Ronit |
| Date | 01 September 2015 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6478.2015.00717.x |
| Published date | 01 September 2015 |
JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY
VOLUME 42, NUMBER 3, SEPTEMBER 2015
ISSN: 0263-323X, pp. 413±33
Implementation in International Business Self-regulation:
The Importance of Sequences and their Linkages
Tony Porter* and Karsten Ronit**
Self-regulation by business is increasingly common internationally, but
the effective implementation of international rules often continues to be
seen as something that only states can carry out. We argue that more
exclusively private forms of effective implementation can be con-
structed in self-regulation. Drawing on research in private inter-
national law, public policy implementation and self-regulation, we
identify four distinct implementation sequences: monitoring, com-
pliance, adjudication, and sanctioning. These sequences are sometimes
constituted in response to deliberate integrated plans, but also come
together in a decentralized manner. Many international business
actors devise ways to carry out the sequences in order to implement
rules that are important for them, reflecting a functional logic of
implementation that is creative and pragmatic, and together constitute
an important stage in the policy process of self-regulation.
INTRODUCTION
Business self-regulation involving a product group, an industry, or any
other cluster of firms has attracted significant scholarly attention over the
last decades. Under a variety of theoretical labels, self-regulation is
today studied in national and international domains,
1
across different
413
*Department of Political Science, McMaster University, 1280 Main Street
West, Hamilton, Ontario L8S4L8, Canada.
tporter@mcmaster.ca
**Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, 5 éster
Farimagsgade, 1353 Copenhagen DK, Denmark.
KR@ifs.ku.dk
Comments from two anonymous reviewers on an earlier draft of this article are gratefully
acknowledged.
1 D. Brown and N. Woods (eds.), Making Global Self-Regulation Effective in
Developing Countries (2007); C. Scott, F. Cafaggi, and L. Senden, `The Challenge of
ß2015 The Author. Journal of Law and Society ß2015 Cardiff University Law School
industries
2
and covering different issues,
3
indicating the far from ephemeral
character of these arrangements. Self-regulation has a centuries-long history,
including, for instance, commercial rules of the European medieval period,
4
but it has come to play a prominent role in the contemporary worldwide
market-oriented restructuring of public policy. The growth of private rule
making has provoked important debates about the sources and future
direction of international law and other disciplines in the social sciences.
This study focuses on the implementation stage of business self-
regulation,
5
which is widely seen to be its most vulnerable part. As with
other stages in the self-regulation process, this stage consists of different
sequences, four of which we identify within the implementation stage:
monitoring, compliance, adjudication, and sanctioning. A common com-
plaint is that self-regulation is just rhetoric and that it lacks the capacity to
ensure that rules are actually followed.
6
One solution to the implementation
challenge is to emphasize the links between public regulation and self-
regulation, with more traditional state institutions such as regula tory
agencies or courts providing the regulatory commitment and the teeth
needed to ensure the effective implementation of self-regulation. Much
valuable work has been done to illuminate these linkages.
7
However we argue that an important source of effectiveness in self-
regulation comes from a more exclusively private interplay between self-
414
Private Transnational Regulation: Conceptual and Constitutional Debates' (2011) 38
J. of Law and Society 1.
2 J. Braithwaite and P. Drahos, Global Business Regulation (2000); T.N. Hale and D.
Held (eds.) , Handbook of Tr ansnationa l Governance : New Institut ions and
Innovations (2011).
3 J.-C. Graz and A. NoÈlke (eds.), Transnational Private Governance and its Limits
(2008); A. Marx et al. (eds.), Private Standards and Global Governance. Economic,
Legal and Political Perspectives (2012).
4 A. Kieser, `Organizational, Institutional, and Societal Evolution: Medieval Craft
Guilds and the Genesis of Formal Organizations' (1989) 34 Administrative Science Q.
550; A. Greif, P. Milgrom, and B.R. Weingast, `Coordination, Commitment, and
Enforcement: The Case of the Merchant Guild' (1994) 102 J. of Political Economy
745; A.C. Cutler, Private Power and Global Authority: Transnational Merchant Law
in the Global Political Economy (2003) 180±207.
5 T. Porter and K. Ronit, `Self-Regulation as Policy Process: The Multiple and Criss-
Crossing Stages of Private Rule-Making' (2006) 39 Policy Sciences 41.
6 I. Maitland, `The Limits of Business Self-Regula tion' (1985) 27 California
Management Rev. 132; A. King and M. Lenox, `Industry Self-Regulation without
Sanctions: The Chemical Industry's Responsible Care Program' (2000) 43 Academy
of Management J. 698.
7 See, for instance, `Special Issue: The Challenge of Transnational Private Regulation:
Conceptual and Constitutional Debates' (2011) 38 J. of Law and Society; F. Cafaggi
(ed.), Enforcement of Transnational Regulation: Ensuring Compliance in a Global
World (2012). See, also, D. Sinclair, `Self-Regulation Versus Command and Control?
Beyond False Dichotomies' (1997) 19 Law and Policy 529 and P.N. Grabosky,
`Beyond Responsive Regulation: The Expanding Role of Non-State Actors in the
Regulatory Process' (2012) 7 Regulation & Governance 114.
ß2015 The Author. Journal of Law and Society ß2015 Cardiff University Law School
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