Playing it safe: toy safety and conformity assessment in Europe and the United States
| DOI | 10.1177/0020852317747370 |
| Date | 01 December 2019 |
| Published date | 01 December 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Review of
Administrative
Article
Sciences
International Review of
Playing it safe: toy
Administrative Sciences
2019, Vol. 85(4) 763–779
!
safety and conformity
The Author(s) 2018
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assessment in Europe
DOI: 10.1177/0020852317747370
journals.sagepub.com/home/ras
and the United States
Derek B. Larson
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, USA
Sara R. Jordan
Center for Public Administration & Policy, Virginia
Polytechnic Institute and State University, USA
Abstract
Do similar standards of product safety lead to similar levels of consumer safety?
In 2007, more than 19 million toys worldwide were recalled for violations of applicable
safety standards. Following these recalls, both the EU and the US instituted new policies
governing children’s products: the US Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of
2008 (CPSIA) and EU 2009 Toy Safety Directive. The relevant toy safety standards that
emerged from this legislation, such as ISO (ISO 8124), US (ASTM F963), and EU
(EN 71) standards are comparable in terms of their language but not their results.
Using a data set profiling implementation of EU and US conformity assessment systems
for determination of product safety for toys manufactured in China, we find that
weighted recall totals for violative products are between 10 and 20 times higher in
the EU than the US. This suggests that differences in the implementation of global
standards result in more unsafe products initially reaching consumers in some locations.
Points for practitioners
Government officials should avoid assuming that safety begins and ends with interna-
tional standards. The process for verifying that products meet established standards is
as important as the standards themselves, and it can have significant economic and
Corresponding author:
Sara R. Jordan, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Center for Public Administration & Policy,
104 Draper Road SW, Blacksburg, VA 24060, USA.
Email: srjordan@vt.edu
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International Review of Administrative Sciences 85(4)
safety impacts The choice of conformity assessment system for a given product or
market is driven by many considerations, including appetite for risk, political institutions
and practice, and variations in national-level administrative capacity. Discussions on the
merits of any conformity assessment system for a given market, or product, should
incorporate all of these factors.
Keywords
consumer safety, global governance, regulation, responsiveness
Branded the ‘Year of the Recall’, 2007 saw the massive withdrawal of millions of
children’s toys from markets in Europe and the United States. Mattel, one of the
world’s largest and most recognizable toy companies, recalled 436,000 toy cars
alone for violations of lead paint standards. Later, they would recall another
18.2 million toys due to the presence of potentially dangerous magnets
(European Commission, 2007; Story and Barboza, 2007). Mattel was not alone,
as these recalls followed an announcement that Toys ‘R’ Us and Thomas the Tank
Engine branded products were also in violation of international lead standards
(Addley, 2007). The extent of the 2007 episode drew the oft-ignored world of
global product safety standards into the public spotlight.
The 2007 recall crisis also highlighted a central problem of regulating a globally
interconnected economy: integration of global trade in safe goods requires com-
parable implementation of pertinent regulations. The problem of establishing, har-
monizing, and enforcing toy safety standards has pushed toys and children’s
products into what some scholars call a ‘meta-regulatory’ space of regulating reg-
ulation (Scott, 2003). However, largely missing from the study of meta-regulation
is an examination of the differences in systems for implementation.
International regulatory bodies, such as the International Organization for
Standards (ISO), create systems of global coordination through regulation of
regulations. For product standards, this meta-regulation occurs when committees
of technical personnel, representing different interested countries, create and agree
on a set of standards. Ideally, the product standards which emerge will reflect
global norms and expectations and will save lives. Similar European Union
(EU) and US standards regarding lead and magnet strength are what allowed
for a rapid recall effort in 2007, which potentially saved the lives of children the
world over.
The arguments about the effectiveness and purpose of global governing bodies
often gloss over the practical matter of the implementation of global regulations.
In this article, we use the case of the 2007 recall crisis to highlight differences in
outcomes of global regulation due to choices of national regulators. We do this by
examining the emergence and effect of the two competing systems for conformity
assessment, each with its own reigning global governor: Supplier’s Declaration of
Larson and Jordan
765
Conformity (SDOC), supported by the European Union; and third-party assessor
(3PA), supported by the United States.
Conformity assessment, as defined by the ISO, is a set of processes that dem-
onstrate the compliance of a product, service, or system with the requirements of
applicable manufacturing standards (ISO, 2012a). Such processes smooth trade of
goods across international borders, assuring both safety and a level playing field
among producers (see Loconto and Busch, 2010). Using bilateral and multi-lateral
trade agreements, the EU and US have tried to increase adoption of their com-
peting conformity assessment models. The results include lack of consensus on
standards enforcement along with a debate regarding the individual benefits to
consumer safety of the two systems. We will review these arguments and the evi-
dence supporting contentions that SDOC and 3PA lead to different outcomes for
consumers at greater length below, but first discuss the concepts underlying global
governance and regulation.
Global standards governance
Global governors consistently lack tools or capacity to ensure symmetrical
enforcement of international standards. This includes inability to establish
global-scale implementation mechanisms for the set of global standards for prod-
uct safety: while regulation is global, implementation remains local. Global gov-
ernance experts, such as Koppell, describe the process of ISO standard
implementation in the following way:
[ISO] sees their rules implemented by market participants but also national and local
governments, international organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and other
GGOs. ISO standards are adopted by governments around the world, incorporated
into laws on safety, construction, manufacturing, and so on. (Koppell, 2010: 209)
Comprising representatives from the national standards bodies of the organiza-
tion’s 163 member nations and some non-governmental organizations, ISO tech-
nical experts work together to create and update over 19,500 product,
manufacturing, environmental, management, and other standards (ISO, 2015;
ISO/CASCO, no date; Loya and Boli, 1999: 175). Through the use of technical
committees and a consensus-based process, the ISO strives to create standards that
ensure quality and safety in globally traded products and processes.
With respect to product safety testing and conformity assessment, the ISO has
an internal body that could conceivably mandate methods or institutions for
assessing product compliance with safety standards: CASCO, the conformity
assessment ISO committee. However, CASCO currently only issues standards
regarding expectations of the existing dominant models, such as General
Requirements for Supplier’s Declaration of Conformity (ISO/IEC 17050-1:2004)
and
General
Requirements
for
Third
Party
Marks
of
Conformity
(ISO/IEC 17030:2003). Whether CASCO’s neutral position serves to perpetuate
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International Review of Administrative Sciences 85(4)
existing standards and side steps important problems in the conformity assessment
debate is a matter of contention among careful observers.
The inability of the ISO (or CASCO) to function as a strong body that
enforces standards at all phases of regulation contradicts a techno-centric view
of global governance as world society (Luhmann, 1997; Overbeek, 2010,
Senghaas, 2003). World society scholars suggest that the solution to standards
implementation problems is to place greater authority to implement regulations
in voluntary technocratic organizations, chiefly the ISO (Drori et al., 2006;
Meyer et al., 1997; Meyer et al., 2006). Others suggest that global governors
should devolve all regulatory ability back to individual states, whose experts are
already the constituent governors of global governance organizations (GGOs)
(Snidal, 1991). Grounded in the realist tradition, according to which state
power and partisan processes extend state based strategies to the global level,
scholars such as Mattli and Bu¨the (2003) and Drezner (2004) argue that stand-
ards ought to reflect the goals, structures, and preferences of well-resourced
nations that are able to participate and design those processes to drive down
costs of goods and information for their economic self-interest (Drezner, 2004;
Gill and Law, 1989).
Why would CASCO fail to recommend a single conformity assessment model
for all ISO member states? We propose that the model of Responsive Regulation,
particularly Transnational Responsive Regulation (TRR), offers some guidance
(Ayers and Braithwaite 1992; J....
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