ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the rationale of how reflexive law, in principle, aims at stimulating organisational self-regulation in accordance with public policy objectives and social expectations and needs. It emphasises the role played by communication in sharing views, and explains how the cases of public-private collaborative regulation may be perceived as reflexive law. It proceeds to expand on reflexive law's lacuna in terms of directives for how to handle power disparities despite the theory's recognition of the importance of a reflexive law process being designed to do so. Reflexive law was developed as a regulatory strategy for situations where policy-makers and law-makers do not have the insights or authority to develop appropriate and relevant detailed regulation applying to specific societal entities, such as businesses that form part of the economic functional sub-system. For reflexive law-type regulatory processes to deliver on their potential, it is highly important to address the normative lacuna in reflexive law theory in relation to handling power disparities.
