The meta-regulation of transnational private regulation

Abstract

This article starts from the assertion that Transnational Private Regulatory Regimes (TPRERs) construct relationships of recognition with the plurality of public and private normative orders and actors that surround them. We argue that the strategies and norms adopted to manage these relationships are reflexive responses to competing legitimacy demands and to issues of regulatory conflict and that they have a meta-regulatory character. More specifically, we explore two disciplines and professional fields, Better Regulation (BR) and Private International Law (PIT), as direct sources of meta-norms and as more indirect sources of inspiration for meta-regulatory strategies. Building on literature that has cast transnational governance and conflict of laws thinking as abstract repositories of potentially useful meta-regulatory ideas, we explore the actual potential for – and limitations of – the migration of disciplinary practices and perspectives in the context of TPR