The Legitimacy of Standardisation as a Regulatory Technique in the EU - A Cross-disciplinary and Multi-level Analysis: An Introduction

Abstract

Standardisation has long been neglected by lawyers, but an increasing amount of work is now being dedicated to studying its various aspects. This book aims to contribute to the literature on standardisation by examining a topical yet still open question surrounding its use: the legitimacy of standardisation as a regulatory technique in the European Union. Standards enter the EU legal systems in a variety of ways: this book aims to present various sectorial perspectives on standardisation in order to show the varied nature of the phenomenon at EU level and its enormous relevance for policy fields as diverse as pharmaceutical authorisation, telecommunications and food safety, but also raise legitimacy-related questions. The overarching research question of this book is, therefore, whether the process of standardisation, with its economic and trade advantages, provides sufficient legitimacy guarantees. We conclude that a number of legitimacy concerns can be highlighted with regard to the standardisation process, and we identify a number of possible avenues for further research on this topic.