Regulatory law: some lessons from the past

Regulation as a legal form of social engineering has been subjected to much analysis in the last decade or so. The importance of the topic to contemporary law cannot be overstated: on the one hand, it has been the avowed aim of government to ‘deregulate’ industry; on the other hand, and paradoxically, both the concomitant policy of privatisation and the evolution towards a Single European Market have increased the need for regulation in appropriate areas. The efforts to explore the strengths and weaknesses of different regulatory forms have brought together scholars from a wide range of disciplines. Administrative lawyers have been concerned with how the power of decision-making is allocated between institutions and the general problems of accountability and control of discretion to which this gives rise. Socio-legal researchers have critically examined the practices of regulatory agencies as regards rule formulation and enforcement.