Law for Sale

Abstract

The book focuses on the philosophical underpinnings, problems, and consequences of regulatory competition. The term ‘regulatory competition’ describes a dynamic in which states as producers of legal rules compete for the favour of mobile consumers of their legal products. Besides discussing regulatory competition, a factual phenomenon, identifying the structural conditions for law markets to occur and referring to particular fields of law where competitive dynamics among legislators can be observed, arguments critical of regulatory competition as a policy approach are presented from the perspective of political theory and philosophy. These arguments provide a clearer picture of the incompatibilities between the theoretical pedigree of regulatory competition—the assumptions we must accept in order to see its promises and its appeal—and other sets of beliefs and commitments that shape our thinking about law and the state. They come to the conclusion that the existence of so-called ‘law markets’ that come with a commodification of law itself is at odds with both our conception of the functions of legal rules and of key political ideals and principles such as democracy, state autonomy, and political authority.

Decolonising medical education regulation: a global view

“…This model of regulatory competition has been criticised in other professional domains, not least for being associated with a ‘race to the bottom’. 20 …”