This report examines the impact of policy interdependence on how governments regulate.

Established domestic regulatory frameworks are reaching their limits to cope with today’s increasing cross-boundary policy challenges. Only united action can effectively navigate the rapid growth of economic integration and interdependencies, particularly driven by innovative technologies.

This work examines the international standardization system generally, with a specific focus on some of the bodies within this system. It also questions the lack of definition regarding several features related to the system, notably an international standardizing body and international standards in the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade.

Agricultural (or "green") biotechnology is a source of growing tensions in the global trading system, particularly between the United States and the European Union. Genetically modified food faces an uncertain future. The technology behind it might revolutionize food production around the world. Or it might follow the example of nuclear energy, which declined from a symbol of socioeconomic progress to become one of the most unpopular and uneconomical innovations in history. This book provides novel and thought-provoking insights into the fundamental policy issues involved in agricultural biotechnology. Thomas Bernauer explains global regulatory polarization and trade conflict in this area. He then evaluates cooperative and unilateral policy tools for coping with trade tensions. Arguing that the tools used thus far have been and will continue to be ineffective, he concludes that the risk of a full-blown trade conflict is high and may lead to reduced investment and the decline of the technology. Bernauer concludes with suggestions for policy reforms to halt this trajectory--recommendations that strike a sensible balance between public-safety concerns and private economic freedom--so that food biotechnology is given a fair chance to prove its environmental, health, humanitarian, and economic benefits. This book will equip companies, farmers, regulators, NGOs, academics, students, and the interested public--including both advocates and critics of green biotechnology--with a deeper understanding of the political, economic, and societal factors shaping the future of one of the most revolutionary technologies of our times.

Many international norms that have emerged in recent years are not set out in formal treaties. They are not concluded in formal international organizations. They frequently involve actors other than formal state representatives. In the realm of finance, health, security, or the environment, international lawmaking is increasingly 'informal': It takes place in networks or loosely organized fora; it involves a multitude of stakeholders including regulators, experts, professional organizations and other non-state actors; it leads to guidelines, standards or best practices. This book critically assesses the concept of informal international lawmaking, its legal nature, and impact at the national and international level. It examines whether it is on the rise, as is often claimed, and if so, what the implications of this are. It addresses what actors are involved in its creation, the processes utilized, and the informal output produced. The book frames informal international lawmaking around three axes: output informality (novel types of norms), process informality (norm-making in networks outside international organizations), and actor informality (the involvement of public agencies and regulators, private actors, and international organizations). Fundamentally, the book is concerned with whether this informality causes problems in terms of keeping transnational lawmaking accountable. By empirically analysing domestic processes of norm elaboration and implementation, the book addresses the key question of how to benefit from the effectiveness of informal international lawmaking without jeopardizing the accountability necessary in the process of making law.

The International Group for Policy and Program Evaluation (INTEVAL) serves as a forum for scholars and practitioners of public policy to discuss ideas and developments as a community dedicated to enhancing the contribution of evaluation to government. From the group's studies has emerged a concern with the impact of public management reforms. Collaboration in Public Services examines collaboration in the delivery of public policies and identifies the challenges for policy and program evaluation. Written by a mix of academics, program managers, evaluators, and auditors, this volume explores the forms and challenges of collaboration in different national contexts. Chapter 1 introduces the notion and manifestations of collaboration and discusses emerging issues. Chapter 2 examines partnerships and networks of public service delivery. Chapter 3, drawing on Dutch and British data, reveals the QUANGO as both a collaborative end and means. Chapter 4 analyzes Israel's push to enhance collaboration with voluntary organizations. Chapter 5 examines the Canadian and Danish experiences. Chapter 6 suggests that the creation of markets to improve quality has not been totally successful at least in Nordic countries. Chapter 7 suggests that traditional service values such as trust and parliamentary accountability are challenged by the complexity of collaboration, but, using illustrations from Canada and other OECD countries, argues that results-based governance can increase trust, flexibility, and empowerment. Chapter 8 demonstrates from Dutch and Canadian experiences that auditor responses to collaborative delivery tend to overlook traditional roles as guardians of accountability on behalf of parliaments. Chapter 9 deliberates the efficacy of programs involving multiple partners. Chapter 10 discusses the lessons and challenges of evaluation and collaborative government.

This volume complements the stocktaking report on International Regulatory Co-operation: Rules for a Global World by providing evidence on regulatory co-operation in the area of transboundary water management and through the fast development of transnational private regulation.

11 sectoral and thematic studies on regulatory reform prepared as background to "The OECD report on regulatory reform". These 11 studies assess the developments and results of regulatory reform in OECD countries in: telecommunication services, financial services, professional business service, electricity, agrofood, and product standards and conformity assessment. The thematic studies assess the economy-wide effects of regulatory reform: impacts on competition and consumers, industrial competitiveness and innovation, regulatory quality and public sector reform, and market openness.

This volume complements the stocktaking report on International Regulatory Co-operation: Rules for a Global World by providing evidence on regulatory co-operation in four sectors: chemical safety, consumer product safety, model tax convention, and competition law enforcement.

Globalization and its relationship to public governance is one of the key issues of our time. In this book, experts from a number of disciplines attempt to define what these two terms mean and, perhaps even more importantly, what they do not. Taking as a starting point that globalization is neither the take-over of political power by multi-national 'stateless' enterprises, nor the chaotic unstructured process of dissolution of public order, the contributors suggest that what is occurring is more institutionalized than many critics would admit. It is argued that there are important transnational and supra-national elements of a new public order, which remain beyond the traditional borders of the state, but not completely beyond the state as such. Globalization, as opposed to former developments in the internationalization of the economy, is characterized by its transnational form, i.e. it is based on exchange processes which, to a greater or lesser degree, bypass both the state and the traditional international character of the world economy of the past.