Voluntary Codes and Multinational Enterprises in an International Context: A Consumer Perspective

Author

Kernaghan Webb

Organization

L'Association des économistes québécois (ASDEQ)

Published

1999

Summary

Conventional command-and-control regulatory approaches, while continuing to be a primary instrument of public policy, are not without their share of drawbacks, including significant jurisdictional limitations, protracted and expensive development processes, and resource-intensive administration. The position taken in this paper is that, in the right set of circumstances, voluntary codes may represent a useful supplement or alternative to regulatory approaches. In many cases, voluntary codes may be capable of addressing some of the aforementioned weaknesses of regulatory techniques. That voluntary codes can do so is largely due to the fact that they tend to harness the energies of a different set of societal forces, players and institutions than is typically drawn on in the development and use of coercion-based regulations.

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Source: Consumer Policy Research Database