Gatekeeping credibility: metrics of regulatory quality and why they matter

The last four decades have witnessed an extraordinary historical experiment in the legal construction of global markets, and at the heart of this experiment have been efforts to make the world’s major regulatory systems interoperable. One result has been the emergence of networks of linked regulatory systems, which facilitate privileged access to global markets and global supply chains for goods and services governed by 'credible' or 'high quality' regulatory systems. But who determines a system’s credibility, by what standards, and for what purposes? Through two case studies of regulatory interoperability in the pharmaceutical and financial sectors, this paper examines the work which is involved in assessing the quality of regulatory systems. It argues also that this work has broader ramifications: helping to re-format regulatory architectures, distribute access to global circuits of value, and allocate regulatory power, and enabling new strategies of governance-based competition. 

Professor Andrew Lang is Chair in International Law and Global Governance at the University of Edinburgh. His work focusses on the legal construction of global markets. His latest monograph, Architectures of Credibility with Oxford University Press, is due for publication in early 2027.