In 2012, OECD countries adopted the Recommendation of the Council on Regulatory Policy and Governance, making international regulatory co-operation (IRC) a key ingredient of regulatory quality.

IRC plays a strong role to “harness” and create the common rules of globalisation. Surprisingly, however, this potential remains largely untapped. The benefits are potentially high. They include: 

• increased trade and investment flows and additional GDP points;
• administrative efficiency gains and cost savings for government, business and citizens;
• societal benefits such as improved safety and strengthened environmental sustainability. 

“International rule-making” is understood broadly, from the design and development of international instruments to their implementation and enforcement. In line with the OECD work and to reflect the breadth of normative activity of IOs, the term “rules” encompasses legal and policy instruments, as well as technical standards developed by IOs, regardless of their legal effects or attributes and of the nature of the IO (public or private). They range from legally binging instruments to different types of non-legally binding instruments and voluntary approaches. 

The many forms of IRC

There is a variety of ways to achieve regulatory co-operation. OECD (2013) identifies 11 mechanisms, from the most binding one through harmonisation of rules via joint institutions to the lightest form of cooperation through exchange of information among regulators.

Despite the growing trend in regulatory co-operation, decision making on IRC is not based on a clear understanding of benefits, costs, and success factors of the various IRC options. The OECD has defined a preliminary range of benefits and costs/challenges of IRC, and is currently unbundling the typology of IRC mechanisms by identifying the benefits/costs and conditions for success of the various mechanisms.

In 2013, the OECD released International Regulatory Co-operation: Addressing Global Challenges, the first systematic and synthetic synthetic stocktaking of knowledge and evidence availlable to date n the various mechanisms available to governments to promote IRC.

The report builds on 10 case studies of various IRC mechanisms, their opportunities, pitfalls, benefits and costs: tocktaking of knowledge and evidence available to date on the various mechanisms available to governments to promote IRC, and their benefits and challenges.

• Canada-U.S. Regulatory Cooperation Council
• Chemical Safety
• Consumer product safety
• Co-ordination of Bilateral Tax Treaties / the OECD Model Tax Convention
• Competition Law Enforcement
• Transnational Private Regulation
• Transboundary Water Management
• Prudential Regulation of Banks
• European Union Energy Regulation
• Global Risk Assessment Dialogue