Technical Standards in Health & Safety Regulation: Risk Regimes, the New Administrative Law, and Food Safety Governance

Abstract

A growing appreciation for the interaction and interdependence of private industry and public authority in developing regulatory standards, monitoring compliance, and disciplining those who fail to conform has led scholars to question the descriptive accuracy of the traditional distinction within regulatory theory between private ordering and public regulation. In its place, scholars have developed the concept of risk regimes to denote infrastructures of private and public entities engaged in regulatory governance. This conceptual shift has laid the foundation for a new understanding of administrative law, in which the rules and procedures that shape administrative governance are no longer limited to government rules that restrain government agencies. This broader conception of administrative law encompasses a wide array of norms — including constitutional doctrines, public laws, and private standards — that govern the regulatory activities of private entities. This chapter presents a case study of food safety regulation to illustrate the concept of risk regimes and the new administrative law that governs them.

Keywords: regulatory governance, risk regulation, food safety, standards conformity, health & safety regulation, regulatory pluralism, risk regimes

JEL Classification: I18, L11, L15, L32, L33, L66, Q13, Q18