Genuine Self-Regulation in Germany: Drawing the Line

Abstract

Due to globalization and privatization, self-regulation has become so important and omnipresent that our times have already been qualified as an "era of self-regulation". Concurrently, self-regulation is an established mode of rule-making and has ancient origins, for example, with respect to the free professions. Its long tradition and widespread use, when taken together, make self-regulation an incredibly broad field for legal scholarship, which has already made many valuable contributions in the realms of private and (even more so) public law. Yet, the contours of the term as such, and the definition of genuine self-regulation, in particular, are far from being razor-sharp; indeed, they remain largely blurred. The paper's focus is therefore on crucial issues of delimitation by first reflecting on the term itself, and then by trying to develop distinctive criteria, which are subsequently apply to different examples. In the end, these examples are used to illustrate why it is important to draw such a distinctive line in the first place.

Keywords: Self-regulation, Private autonomy, Enforcement, Standard Terms, Corporate Governance Codes, Technical Standards