Sector-Specific and Public Law Approaches to (International) Regulatory Law: A Rationale for the Combined Use of Global Administrative Law and New Governance as Tools for the New 'International' Law

In: Nordic journal of international law, Band 77, Heft 3, S. 217-233

Abstract

AbstractThe complexity of contemporary relations and problems, exacerbated by the intricacies of international interaction, pose an enormous challenge to law in general and international law in particular. This paper focuses on two of the various reactions of the legal doctrine to this complexity: on the one hand, the embracement of the novel circumstances and phenomena in their own right – the new governance approaches (NG); on the other hand, the insistence on traditional legal tools but under a renewed understanding thereof in line with changing circumstances – the global administrative law approaches (GAL). The first part of the argument here is that within particular regulatory contexts NG and GAL find their expression in sector-specific and public law approaches, respectively. The paper goes on to essentially argue for a lato sensu public law analysis to be undertaken cumulatively with – and not alternatively to – the sector-specific analysis. This serves to further support the view that NG and GAL are not antithetical; they are rather complementary, and in fact they seem to show a lot of promise in mitigating the (normative) defects of each other.