IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/irlaec/v42y2015icp158-173.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Exporting standards: The externalization of the EU's regulatory power via markets

Author

Listed:
  • Bradford, Anu

Abstract

This Article examines the unprecedented and deeply underestimated global power that the EU is exercising through its legal institutions and standards, and how it successfully exports that influence to the rest of the world. Introducing the notion of “the Brussels Effect,” the Article shows how market forces alone are sufficient to convert EU standards into global standards. Without the need to use international institutions or seek other nations’ cooperation, the EU has a strong and growing ability to promulgate regulations that become entrenched in the legal frameworks of developed and developing markets alike, leading to a notable “Europeanization” of many important aspects of global commerce. This Article identifies and explains the precise conditions for and the specific mechanism through which this externalization of EU's standards unfolds. Enhanced understanding of this dynamic explains why the EU is currently the only jurisdiction that can wield unilateral influence across a number of areas of law, ranging from competition and privacy to health and environmental regulation. This understanding also helps explain why certain regulations can be externalized via markets while others rely on the EU's ability to exert influence through its political agency. The Article further disputes the notion that the EU's ability to externalize its rules would reflect “regulatory imperialism,” as critics have suggested. Instead, it argues that the EU's external regulatory influence has emerged largely as an inadvertent byproduct of its internal goal to create and strengthen the single market. The EU's regulatory authority has been further solidified as the markets, other states, and international institutions have been able to do little to constrain Europe's global regulatory power. In the end, as much as the rise of the EU's regulatory power is a product of its pursuit of internal goals, any limits to this power are likely to stem from within the EU itself.

Suggested Citation

  • Bradford, Anu, 2015. "Exporting standards: The externalization of the EU's regulatory power via markets," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 158-173.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:irlaec:v:42:y:2015:i:c:p:158-173
    DOI: 10.1016/j.irle.2014.09.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0144818814000659
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.irle.2014.09.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ruggie, John Gerard, 1982. "International regimes, transactions, and change: embedded liberalism in the postwar economic order," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 36(2), pages 379-415, April.
    2. Katerina Linos, 2011. "Diffusion through Democracy," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(3), pages 678-695, July.
    3. Xinzhu Zhang & Vanessa Yanhua Zhang, 2010. "Chinese Merger Control: Patterns And Implications," Journal of Competition Law and Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 6(2), pages 477-496.
    4. Kalypso Nicolaïdis & Robert Howse, 2002. "‘This is my EUtopia ...’: Narrative as Power," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(4), pages 767-792, November.
    5. Ian Manners, 2002. "Normative Power Europe: A Contradiction in Terms?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(2), pages 235-258, June.
    6. Gary Clyde Hufbauer & Jeffrey J. Schott & Kimberly Ann Elliott, 2009. "Economic Sanctions Reconsidered, 3rd Edition (paper)," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number 4129, October.
    7. Elizabeth R. DeSombre, 2006. "Flagging Standards: Globalization and Environmental, Safety, and Labor Regulations at Sea," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262541904, December.
    8. Guasch, J Luis & Hahn, Robert W, 1999. "The Costs and Benefits of Regulation: Implications for Developing Countries," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 14(1), pages 137-158, February.
    9. Murphy, Dale D., 2004. "The Structure of Regulatory Competition: Corporations and Public Policies in a Global Economy," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199267514.
    10. repec:reg:rpubli:120 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Gary Clyde Hufbauer & Jeffrey J. Schott & Kimberly Ann Elliott, 2009. "Economic Sanctions Reconsidered, 3rd Edition softcover with CD," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number 4310, January.
    12. Tim Büthe & Walter Mattli, 2011. "The New Global Rulers: The Privatization of Regulation in the World Economy," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9470.
    13. Keohane, Robert O. & Macedo, Stephen & Moravcsik, Andrew, 2009. "Democracy-Enhancing Multilateralism," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 63(1), pages 1-31, January.
    14. Braithwaite,John & Drahos,Peter, 2000. "Global Business Regulation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521784993.
    15. Katharina Holzinger & Thomas Sommerer, 2011. "‘Race to the Bottom’ or ‘Race to Brussels’? Environmental Competition in Europe," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(2), pages 315-339, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cecere, Grazia & Martinelli, Arianna, 2017. "Drivers of knowledge accumulation in electronic waste management: An analysis of publication data," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(5), pages 925-938.
    2. Sandra Eckert, 2021. "The European Green Deal and the EU's Regulatory Power in Times of Crisis," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(S1), pages 81-91, September.
    3. Kastratovic, Radovan, 2019. "Impact of foreign direct investment on greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture of developing countries," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 63(3), July.
    4. Andrea Prontera & Rainer Quitzow, 2023. "Catalytic Power Europe: Blended Finance in European External Action," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(4), pages 988-1006, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Büthe Tim, 2010. "Private Regulation in the Global Economy: A (P)Review," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(3), pages 1-40, October.
    2. Bruce G. Carruthers & Naomi R. Lamoreaux, 2016. "Regulatory Races: The Effects of Jurisdictional Competition on Regulatory Standards," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(1), pages 52-97, March.
    3. Daniel Berger & William Easterly & Nathan Nunn & Shanker Satyanath, 2013. "Commercial Imperialism? Political Influence and Trade during the Cold War," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(2), pages 863-896, April.
    4. Matthieu Crozet & Julian Hinz, 2020. "Friendly fire: the trade impact of the Russia sanctions and counter-sanctions," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 35(101), pages 97-146.
    5. Joan Esteban & Massimo Morelli & Dominic Rohner, 2015. "Strategic Mass Killings," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 123(5), pages 1087-1132.
    6. Felbermayr, Gabriel & Kirilakha, Aleksandra & Syropoulos, Constantinos & Yalcin, Erdal & Yotov, Yoto V., 2020. "The global sanctions data base," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    7. Lee, Yong Suk, 2018. "International isolation and regional inequality: Evidence from sanctions on North Korea," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 34-51.
    8. Johannes Urpelainen, 2012. "How Does Democratic Accountability Shape International Cooperation?," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 29(1), pages 28-55, February.
    9. Janina Grabs & Graeme Auld & Benjamin Cashore, 2021. "Private regulation, public policy, and the perils of adverse ontological selection," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(4), pages 1183-1208, October.
    10. Ali Moghaddasi Kelishomi & Roberto Nisticò, 2021. "Employment Effects of Economic Sanctions," CSEF Working Papers 615, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    11. Gern, Klaus-Jürgen & Hauber, Philipp & Kooths, Stefan & Stolzenburg, Ulrich, 2017. "Weltkonjunktur im Winter 2017 - Weltwirtschaft weiter im Aufschwung [World Economy Winter 2017 - World economic upswing continues]," Kieler Konjunkturberichte 37, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    12. Hufbauer, Gary Clyde & Jung, Euijin, 2020. "What's new in economic sanctions?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    13. Alexandra Lukyanova & Ayaz Zeynalov, 2022. "Russian Agricultural Industry under Sanction Wars," Papers 2211.09205, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2022.
    14. Dominic P. Parker & Jeremy D. Foltz & David Elsea, 2016. "Unintended consequences of economic sanctions for human rights: Conflict minerals and infant mortality in the Democratic Republic of the Congo," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2016-124, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    15. Crozet, Matthieu & Hinz, Julian & Stammann, Amrei & Wanner, Joschka, 2021. "Worth the pain? Firms’ exporting behaviour to countries under sanctions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    16. Jerg Gutmann & Matthias Neuenkirch & Florian Neumeier, 2020. "Precision-guided or blunt? The effects of US economic sanctions on human rights," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 185(1), pages 161-182, October.
    17. Antonis Adam & Sofia Tsarsitalidou, 2019. "Do sanctions lead to a decline in civil liberties?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 180(3), pages 191-215, September.
    18. Ankudinov, Andrei & Ibragimov, Rustam & Lebedev, Oleg, 2017. "Sanctions and the Russian stock market," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 150-162.
    19. Jerg Gutmann & Matthias Neuenkirch & Florian Neumeier, 2021. "Sanctioned to Death? The Impact of Economic Sanctions on Life Expectancy and its Gender Gap," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 57(1), pages 139-162, January.
    20. Simon J. Evenett, 2021. "Power transition and the regulatory state in large emerging markets: Norm‐breaking after the global financial crisis," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(3), pages 472-491, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:irlaec:v:42:y:2015:i:c:p:158-173. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/irle .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.