Regulating Autonomy

These essays explore the nature and limits of individual autonomy in law, policy and the work of regulatory agencies. Authors ask searching questions about the nature and scope of the regulation of 'private' lives, from intimacies, personal relationships and domestic lives to reproduction. They question the extent to which the law does, or should, protect individual autonomy. Recent rapid advances in the development of new technologies - particularly those concerned with human genetics and assisted reproduction - have generated new questions (practical, social, legal and ethical) about how far the state should intervene in individual decision making. Is there an inevitable tension between individual liberty and the common good? How might a workable balance between the public and the private be struck? How, indeed, should we think about 'autonomy'? The essays explore the arguments used to create and maintain the boundaries of autonomy - for example, the protection of the vulnerable, public goods of various kinds, and the maintenance of tradition and respect for cultural practices. Contributors address how those boundaries should be drawn and interventions justified. How are contemporary ethical debates about autonomy constructed, and what principles do they embody? What happens when those principles become manifest in law?

This book presents current research on self-regulation and autonomy, which have emerged as key predictors of health and well-being in several areas of psychology.

This new book provides a clear and accessible analysis of the various ways in which human reproduction is regulated. A comprehensive exposition of the law relating to birth control,abortion, pregnancy, childbirth, surrogacy and assisted conception is accompanied by an exploration of some of the complex ethical dilemmas that emerge when one of the most intimate areas of human life is subjected to regulatory control. Throughout the book, two principal themes recur. First, particular emphasis is placed upon the special difficulties that arise in regulating new technological intervention in all aspects of the reproductive process. Second, the concept of reproductive autonomy is both interrogated and defended. This book offers a readable and engaging account of the complex relationships between law, technology and reproduction. It will be useful for lecturers and students taking medical law or ethics courses. It should also be of interest to anyone with a more general interest in women's bodies and the law, or with the profound regulatory consequences of new technologies.

Regulatory Autonomy in International Economic Law provides the first extensive legal analysis of Australia’s trade and investment treaties in the context of their impact on national regulatory autonomy. This thought-provoking study offers compelling lessons for not only Australia but also countries around the globe in relation to pressing current problems, including the uncertain future of the World Trade Organization and widespread concerns about the legitimacy of investor–State dispute settlement.

This book considers how the interplay between multilateral and preferential liberalisation of trade in services increasingly raises concerns, both from the perspective of the beneficiaries of such liberalisation (whose rights are uncertain) and that of regulators (whose regulatory autonomy is constrained). The author shows how these concerns lead to vast underutilisation of, and strong prejudices against, the benefits of services liberalisation. The book meticulously analyses and compares the EU's obligations under the GATS and the services chapters of several RTAs to finally assess the merits of the raised concerns.

This book focuses on regulatory reforms and the autonomization and agencification of public sector organizations across Europe, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. The central argument of the book is that regulation and agencification occur and perform in tandem. Comparative analysis on the processes, effects and implications of regulatory reform and the establishment of semi-independent agencies are undertaken, and the practice of trade-offs between political control and agency autonomy is explored. The contributors also discuss the challenges of fragmentation, coordination, 'joined-up' government and other government initiatives in the aftermath of the New Public Management movement and its focus on agencification. Finally, the complexity of deregulation/re-regulation, new emergent forms of regulation, control and auditing as well as reassertion of the centre are examined. Until now, there has been little attempt to link the study on regulation and regulatory reforms with that of autonomous central agencies. In this book the two fields are brought together. Autonomy and Regulation will find its audience amongst scholars and researchers working in the areas of political science, public administration and public management, organization theory, institutional analyses and comparative administration. It will also appeal to scholars and those directly involved in public sector and regulatory reforms including politicians and managers.

This book investigates the limits of the legitimate role of the state in regulating the human body. It questions whether there is a public interest in issues of bodily autonomy, with particular focus on reproductive choices, end of life choices, sexual autonomy, body modifications and selling the body. The main question addressed in this book is whether such autonomous choices about the human body are, and should be, subject to state regulation. Potential justifications for the state's intervention into these issues through mechanisms such as the criminal law and regulatory schemes are evaluated. These include preventing harm to others and/or to the individual involved, as well as more abstract concepts such as public morality, the sanctity of human life, and the protection of human dignity. The State and the Body argues that the state should be particularly wary about encroaching upon exercises of autonomy by embodied selves and concludes that only interventions based upon Mill's harm principle or, in tightly confined circumstances, the dignity of the human species as a whole should suffice to justify public intervention into private choices about the body.

Leading scholars from across the social sciences present empirical evidence that the obstacle of regulatory capture is more surmountable than previously thought.