Project A1 examines the tensions between trade liberalisation and social regulation in transnational constellations. Special attention is paid to the differences between the European and the WTO level. Europe has witnessed competence shifts from the national to the European level which have fostered a modernization and of the regulatory machinery and its effectiveness. Although there are no equivalent positive regulatory competences available on the WTO level, transnational regimes generating standards with regulative functions have developed. On both levels non-governmental actors are being integrated into regulative policy and networks have been established in which specialised bureaucracies and experts cooperate. However, as social regulation is no longer being coordinated with other policies and redistributive implications are usually not considered (rather neglected) we are observing a diffusion and fragmentation of national regulatory activities.

These processes and the legal structures that have emerged were described and explained in the first two phases of the project. In the third phase outcomes on social welfare, rule of law and democracy shall be examined. Special attention will be paid to the reactions and strategies of actors and institutions involved and effected. Such analyses will focus on four regulatory areas of exemplary importance: Genetically modified food, telecommunication- and health services, product and process related environmental regulation, and labour standards. The overriding systematic objective is the further development of a conflict-of-laws approach as a systematic framework of the project is the development of the conceptual framework preparation in which the tensions between free trade and regulatory concerns can be comprehensively analysed and evaluated.

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Final report 2015 in German
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