ABSTRACT
Remarkable new supra-governmental, transnational regulatory systems are taking shape around us. Driven primarily by civil society organizations, but also by governments and industry associations, these systems draw on conventional technical standard setting and certification techniques to establish marketleveraged, social and environmental regulatory programmes. They go beyond traditional standard setting, however, in seeking to protect interests not directly involved in the market chain. Moreover, these systems incorporate plural rulemaking, adjudication, and enforcement programmes. The programmes constantly compete with, but also mimic and reinforce each other. While the most developed example is in forestry, similar systems are also present in agriculture, fisheries, apparel, and mining, among other sectors. They share the assumptions that enterprises around the world should be held to common standards and that compliance with those standards can be assured through use of formally independent expert auditors. The various standards, procedures, and roles of the actors are generally defined in terms of formalized rules, rights, and duties based on normative criteria in ways very similar to those of state-based legal systems.
