HiiL Selects Subsidy Recipient for 2008 Private Actors and Self-regulation Tender

Professor Dr. Fabrizio Cafaggi (European University Institute – Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies), together with his colleagues Prof. Dr. Linda Senden (Tilburg University) and Prof. Colin Scott (University College Dublin) designed the project in response to HiiL’s 2008 call for project proposals referring to the question,
“What form of regulation with a transnational dimension, created by either private actors or public actors (including intergovernmental organisations) or through their cooperation, is most successful in regulating the conduct of corporations in a transnational environment? What conditions are decisive for determining the appropriateness of the relevant regulatory regime?”
Prof. Cafaggi’s proposal was selected from a number of high-quality proposals submitted by several highly-qualified applicants.

The ‘Private transnational regulation: Constitutional foundations and governance design’ project addresses key questions concerning the mix of public and private power in transnational governance which are raised by the emergence of transnational private regulatory regimes (TPRER). This project will evaluate the constitutional foundations, emergence and dissolution of TPRER through the execution of case studies on financial markets regulation, corporate social responsibility and protection of fundamental rights, consumer protection and standardization. The project, in cooperation with stakeholders, will try to produce guidelines on private regulation focusing on general principles, appropriate governance design and impact assessment, in addition to monographs on the effects of these regimes on national and transnational legal orders, providing theoretical foundations for the policy recommendations. The project is also supported by contributions from the European University Institute, Tilburg University, and University College Dublin. The project will be coordinated by the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies of the European University Institute.

Professor Dr. Fabrizio Cafaggi holds the Comparative Law Chair at the European University Institute in Italy. He is also Professor of Private Law at the University of Trento (on leave until 2011). He has been Visiting Professor at Columbia Law School and at Universidad de San Andres in Argentina and will be visiting professor at New York University, Global Houser Program in Fall 2009. He was Olin Fellow at Yale Law School and Boalt Hall School of Law, and received a Degree of Doctor in Private Law from the University of Pisa. His research interests focus on private regulation at the national and transnational level and its interplay with new modes of governance. He has been writing extensively on European Private Law addressing the role of the institutional framework. He combines a Law & Economics approach with neo institutionalism and engages into interdisciplinary analysis using empirical and field research. He serves as Director of the European Private Law Forum, and is member of the editing board of "Mercato, Concorrenza e Regole", member of the scientific board of "Giornale di diritto del lavoro e delle relazioni industriali", member of the board of Forum de la regulation, member of the Consultative Board SECOLA, member of the scientific committee of AICCON, and affiliate member of the American Law Institute. Prof. Cafaggi has published extensively on regulation and governance.


Professor Dr. Linda Senden is a professor of European and International Public Law at Tilburg University. She focuses in her research both on institutional EU law and internal market law. Her special interests concern European regulatory and governance issues, the quality of European law and rulemaking, the European Court of Justice and comparative regionalism (the EU as an integration model). This research is performed within two research centers: the Center for Transboundary Legal Development and Reflect. She is a member of the editorial board of the Dutch Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Europees recht, a member of the editorial board of the SDU-series on European law in practice, and has been a visiting professor at the National University of Singapore, the University of Connecticut, and Koc University (Istanbul). Prof. Senden has published extensively on EU regulatory law.


Professor Colin Scott studied law at the London School of Economics and at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto. Prior to his appointment at UCD in April 2006, he lectured at the University of Warwick and at the London School of Economics. Between 2001 and 2003 he was the Senior Research Fellow in Public Law at the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. He is also a research associate of the ESRC Centre for the Analysis of Risk and Regulation (CARR), based at the London School of Economics and with which he had been associated since its creation in 2000. He is a Professor at the College of Europe, Bruges, where he teaches a course on the Law and Economics of Regulation and Competition on the Masters Programme in European Law and Economic Analysis. He has published extensively on regulation and governance.