Regulatory Law and Policy

Regulating risks to public health, financial stability, safety, the environment, and security are a dominant emphasis of contemporary governments, both in the United States and globally. Regulations by bureaucratic agencies mandate pollution control, create security protocols at ports, limit investment options, and govern automobile safety technologies. These rules deeply affect the commercial operating environment of businesses; the institutional, political, and legal context of government actors; and the role of individuals as consumers in the marketplace and as citizens in a democracy. For this reason, lawyers in government, the private sector, and public-interest organizations are frequently called on for their expertise in understanding and shaping regulation. Although regulations differ vastly by their substantive areas, there are institutional approaches and substantive principles that are common to different regulatory domains, including methodologies such as risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis; procedural requirements that facilitate transparency, oversight, and public participation; challenges of uncertainty and expertise; and values such as precaution, autonomy, and well-being. This course focuses on the cross-cutting elements of regulation to provide students with a set of general tools and concepts that can inform area-specific advanced courses and be applied in many different practice settings.