Foundations of Public Regulation: Unity and Diversity Across Regulated Sectors

One of the most pressing challenges in Administrative Law scholarship is to define the concept of regulation and determine the scope of its underlying structural principles. The concept of "regulation" is ubiquitous and, regardless of its precise meaning, broadly encapsulates the State's evolving role as guarantor and its intervention in liberalised markets. It is invoked in almost every context where public intervention is required to guide or shape market activity. Whether referring to hedge funds, credit rating agencies, international financial markets, access to higher education, employment services, pharmaceutical markets or the safety of nuclear power plants, the language of "regulation" is readily applied across a wide range of policy areas. Such broad usage, however, risks reducing regulation to a synonym for any form of State intervention involving economic activity, thereby depriving the concept of clear legal and systematic boundaries. Against this background, there is an increasing need to develop a coherent legal framework capable of ensuring legal certainty, safeguarding the rights of businesses and consumers, and, more broadly, protecting the public interest that underpins regulatory activity.