Comparative Legal Tradition Tutorial Question: The efficacy of the efficacy of a unified field of global administrative law

I have just read the assigned reading for the CLT tutorial on global administrative law by Benedict Kingsbury, Nico Krisch, and Richard Stewart.  The article talks about the various requirements that has to be satisfied and the challenges that would be met in the endeavor to create a unified body of global administrative law to better regulate the transnational operations in the current post-fordist/post-industrial world which has seen greater globalised interdependence in such fields as security, the conditions on development and financial assistance to developing countries, environmental protection, banking and financial regulation, law enforcement, telecommunications, trade in products and services, intellectual property, labor standards, and cross-border movements of populations, including refugees. 

Increasingly, these consequences cannot be addressed effectively by isolated national regulatory and administrative measures. As a result, various transnational systems of regulation or regulatory cooperation have been established through international treaties and more informal intergovernmental networks of cooperation, shifting many regulatory decisions from the national to the global level and the flourishing of transnational regulatory organizations to regulate transnational activities.

This situation has created an accountability deficit in the growing exercise of transnational regulatory power. The purpose of global administrative law seeks to "meta-regulate" these regulatory powers. It is in this context featuring the development of transnationalization of regulatory powers that the authors have defined global administrative law in their article as comprising the mechanisms, principles, practices, and supporting social understandings that promote or otherwise affect the accountability of global administrative bodies, in particular by ensuring they meet adequate standards of transparency, participation, reasoned decision, and legality, and by providing effective review of the rules and decisions they make

In the article, the author sought to develop an approach to global administrative action by delineating and elaborating what they believe is a nascent field of global administrative law.

For my tutorial write-up, I am suppose to write my thoughts about whether the proposal is likely to be effective, whether it takes into account the distinctly post-industrial nature of the new globalized world,whether "this" is just another example of Western post-colonial colonialism, along the lines of neo-liberalism and the Washington Consensus, or is it different. And if it is different, how so.

I am not entirely sure how to go about evaluating the proposal for the likelihood of its effectiveness. I would incorporate the aims defined by the authors of the article as the normative aims of global administrative law. It is with these normative aims in mind that I would evaluate the "effectiveness" of the proposal. As such, this would involve the evaluation of whether global administrative law would be successful in promoting or affecting the accountability of global administrative bodies without unduly compromising efficacy of the transnational activities which is being regulated.

One factor that would affect the success of the implementation of global administrative law is the perception by smaller countries of whether it is an impartial regulatory device. Casting global governance in administrative terms might lead to its stabilization and legitimation in ways that privilege current powerholders and reinforce the dominance of Northern and Western concepts of law and sound governance.Thus, from the perspective of smaller developing countries, global regulatory institutions including the WTO, IMF, World Bank, and U.N. Security Council might already appear to be "administering" them at the bidding of the industrialized countries, which are generally subject to far less intrusive external regulation. Confronting these issues in administrative terms may highlight the need to devise strategies for remedying unfairness associated with such inequalities.

Many of the emerging mechanisms of global administrative law stem from northern and western initiatives, and any attempt at justifying the need for such a body of law must thus face the challenge of intellectual and political bias. Justifications must probably be based, in one way or the other, on individual civil rights, economic rights, and democracy, reflecting in some measure solidarist or cosmopolitan conceptions of international ordering. Yet even a limited form of such reconceptualization could face political challenges: an international order based on individual or economic rights may be too close to Western, liberal conceptions to be universally acceptable. Emphasizing the organizing role of state sovereignty may prove superior in coping with the challenge of diversity.

One factor that Professor Dowdle seems to be highlighting in his framing of the tutorial question as a variable affecting the chances of success of this proposal is the "distinctly post-industrial nature of the new globalized world". I am not sure about the relevance of considering this feature in making an evaluation of the likelihood of success of the development of a unified body of global administrative law. It seems to me that the effort to develop a unified body of global administrative law is to solve the accountability deficits inherent in transnational regulatory powers in the new globalized world, and it is an oxymoron to examine the success of the project to develop a unified body of global administrative law based on the circumstances which created the problem which is sought to be resolved.

But perhaps the reason Professor Dowdle thinks that the article has not sufficiently taken into account the nature of post-industrial world because it did not take into account the disaggregated production aspect of transnational economies. Now, what about this feature that would determine the efficacy of the institution of global administrative law? I am not sure, but I think I can leave my answer as being that the authors of the article has not taken into account the nature of the post-industrial/post-fordist world when they made their proposal of the development of a unified body of global administrative law.

But then again, I should offer some evaluation as to how this concept of a post-fordist/post-industrial world would affect the efficacy of the implementation of global administrative laws. I suppose I can make an evaluation of this based on the stipulated requirements in the article for the effective implementation of global administrative laws. They are 1)Procedural Participation and Transparency, 2) Requirement of reasons for administrative decisions, 3) An entitlement to have a decision of a domestic administrative body affecting one’s rights reviewed by a court or other independent tribunal, 4) An expectation that global administrative laws embody substantive standards for administrative action, like those applied in a domestic context – such as proportionality, rational relations between means and ends, use of less restrictive means, or legitimate expectations.

But how does this disaggregated production character of post-industrial economies affect these variables such as to determine the efficacy of the implementation of a unified body of global administrative law?