| dc.description.abstract | Some years ago, when I was working in Brussels as a consultant on European affairs, I used to travel regularly to Japan to update Japanese manufacturers on the latest developments in European Union (EU) legislation. At the time I did not suspect that, in so doing, I was contributing to what Anu Bradford in her latest book calls the "Brussels Effect". The Brussels Effect refers to the phenomenon whereby, under specific conditions, the EU influences and shapes the global regulatory environment by unilaterally adopting stringent regulatory standards for its own internal market. In order to gain and maintain access to the large European consumer market, most multinational companies are pushed to comply with EU standards and often expand such compliance across their world-wide production. Thus, in many fields, the EU has established itself as a global regulatory hegemon. The EU determines the amount of chemicals present in toys made in China, the notices about cookies that we receive while surfing on the web, the safety devices installed in cars produced in Japan and whether or not two US companies can merge. In my own experience, our Japanese clients used information on EU rules and laws to adapt their future production to EU environmental and safety standards, internalising EU regulatory preferences in their own production planning. | |
