International Regulatory Co-operation
Addressing Global Challenges
The world is becoming increasingly global. This raises important challenges for regulatory
processes which still largely emanate from domestic jurisdictions. In order to eliminate
unnecessary regulatory divergences and to address global challenges pertaining to
systemic risks, the environment, and human health and safety, governments increasingly
seek to better articulate regulations across borders and to ensure greater enforcement
of rules and their application across jurisdictions.
This report gathers in a synthetic manner the knowledge and evidence available to
date on the various mechanisms available to governments to promote regulatory co-operation,
and their benefits and challenges. The review of evidence confirms the increased internationalisation
of regulation, which takes place through a wide variety of mechanisms and multiple
actors, and highlights a shift in the nature of IRC from complete 'harmonisation'
of regulation to more flexible options - such as mutual recognition agreements. Despite
growing regulatory co-operation, however, decision making on IRC is not informed by
a clear understanding of benefits costs and success factors of the diverse IRC options.
Published on April 24, 2013