Global Regulation & Global
Governance
Sometime during the 1960s and 1970s, the economic potential of
technological and biological patents became of central concern to
the U.S. government
TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of
Intellectual Property Rights) was
a political and social innovation by
the United States to enable
corporations to assert control
over products
•S/he who can establish binding rules of the global political
economy can do so to his/her advantage
TRIPS—Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual
Property Rights
•International treaties required mutual recognition of domestic
IPR systems, but not as a precondition for economic relationships
• U.S. pharma took the lead in pushing for a multilaterally-binding
system of IPR recognition, which was eventually embedded in the
WTO as TRIPS
• Accession to the WTO requires signing on to TRIPS, recognizing
and adhering to its standards and requirements, and agreeing to
dispute resolution procedures when necessary
•TRIPS is domestically-binding, and the WTO can order national
courts to enforce its findings against parties who violate IPRs
•The WTO can also require payment of damages in the event the
offending country does not remedy the violation
•See http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/trips_e.htm
Why is cooperative global regulation needed?
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States are concerned about
domestic effects of cross-border
flows of goods, bads, people,
money
States generally do not have the
authority to regulate activities
taking place in other states
Actors are concerned about
activities and conditions in other
places, and seek to protect their
interests
Common sets of rules and
practices help to standardize and
to reduce transaction costs
Examples: trade, migration, crime,
communications; some of these
were already regulated during the
19th century
Nuclear proliferation is a
particular current concern
“Global governance” is
described as the
answer
• Set of codified rules and regulations of transnational
or global scope
• Collection of authority relationships that manage,
monitor or enforce said rules
• Includes a variety of arrangements, including “hard
law” treaties, “soft law” declarations, private orders,
and international governmental organizations, and
• Global policy coordination that takes place without
any governance structures
Nation-states are understood to maintain a
central role in such global arrangements
• Sovereignty implies that only a state can
regulate within its own jurisdictional
space
• Because regulations must be
implemented within states to be effective
and enforced, states must agree to
regulate
• Enforcement of regulations relies on the
judicial and police powers of states, since
global equivalents are lacking
• But the “principal-agent” problem
greatly complicates such regulation—
which can lead to “regulation from below”
“Governance” is not the same as “government.”
It assumes more than just the institutions of
the latter, a wider range of actors, and broader
forms of regulation.
At the international level, such arrangements are
generally called regimes
Stephen Krasner, International Regimes (p.2):
“International regimes are defined as principles, norms,
rules, and decision-making procedures around which actor
expectations converge in a given issue area.
•Principles are belief of fact, causation, and rectitude.
•Norms are standards of behavior defined in terms of
rights and obligations.
•Rules are specific prescriptions or proscriptions for
action.
•Decision-making procedures are prevailing practices for
making and implementing collective choice.”
Volker Rittenberger, Regime Theory and Int'l Relations
(p.xii): “Rules of the game agreed upon by actors in the
international arena (usually nation-states) and delimiting,
for these actors, the range of legitimate or admissible
behavior in a specific context of activity.”
Int’l regimes can have some or all of the following
elements
• A formative convention or treaty that stipulates problems,
principles and practices (e.g., UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change)
• An administrative secretariat or office that has various
organizational powers and responsibilities (e.g., UNFCC
Secretariat is located in Bonn, Germany)
• Various related or subsidiary organs and agencies (e.g., IPCC,
GEF, SBSTA, etc.)
• Periodic or regular conference/meetings of the parties
(MOP/COP) to the agreement (e.g., Climate Change Conference,
Intersessional Meetings, subsidiary bodies
• Associated agreements and protocols (e.g., Kyoto Protocol; Clean
Development Mechanism
• Other associated operations, agencies at various levels (e.g.,
carbon emissions trading schemes and markets)
The “UN System” is a collection of regimes: these are merely the “principal
agencies” of the United Nations—and there are numerous public/private
regime-like organizations and associations, as well
In practice, many international regimes are strongly
influenced by the United States, the EU and Japan
• For example, the head of the World Bank is always an American; the
head of the IMF is always a European
• Structural adjustment policies reflect the neo-liberal “Washington
Consensus” of the 1990s, which give advantage to capital
• International regulations governing commercial aircraft and flight
are largely drawn from U.S. regulations
• The World Health Organization depends on the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention to investigate disease outbreaks
• TRIPS is organized around Anglo-American property rights
concepts, rules and practices
• The IAEA generally responds most strongly to U.S. concerns in the
event of proliferation issues and concerns
• So, is “Global Governance” really “global?”
As always, implementation is assumed to take place at
national and sub-national levels
When national governments do not act, subnational governments
may attempt to intervene—but there are arguments that this does
not make sense (“collective action problem”)
November 15, 2007
Governors Pushing Caps on Greenhouse Gases
By JOHN M. BRODER
WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 — Frustrated with the slow progress of energy and global warming
legislation in Washington, the nation’s governors have created regional agreements to cap
greenhouse gases and are engaged in a concerted lobbying effort to prod Congress to act.
To a growing degree, moreover, states and
regimes are constructing transnational
“public-private partnerships”
•Public authority sells property or
property rights in things, goods, services
•Private entity manages thing, good,
service and sells it to customers
•The UN “Global Compact” is one example
Privatization of
governance is a
relatively new
“commodity frontier,”
but raises numerous
questions:
• Who decides what to privatize, and to with whom contracts
should be signed?
• Who do private entities represent, and to whom are they
accountable?
• What kinds of regulations and laws must private entities obey,
and who monitors and enforces such limitations?
•What happens if a private entity is found to be engaged in illegal
or corrupt activities?
• Privatization of “security services” illustrates some of the
potential pitfalls of contracting out “governance” to the market