Enforcement is the proper execution of the process of ensuring compliance with laws, regulations, rules, standards, and social norms. [1]
Governments attempt to effectuate successful implementation of policies by enforcing laws and regulations. [2] Enactment refers to application of a law or regulation, or carrying out of an executive or judicial order.
Enforcement serves a number of functions; the enforcement of social norms can ensure conformity within insular communities, [3] the enforcements of laws can maximize social benefits and protect the public interest, [4] and enforcement may also serve the self-interest of the institutions that oversee enforcement. [5] Enforcement can be effectuated by both public institutions and private, non-governmental actors. [6] Enforcement is often accomplished through coercive means or by utilizing power disparities to constrain action. [7] Some scholars, such as Kate Andrias, have also argued that institutions enforce rules when deciding "when and how to apply" laws and regulations. [8]
Some governments will delegate enforcement powers to subordinate governmental entities or private parties. [9] In the United States, for example, the federal government and state governments often delegate a range of enforcement powers to administrative agencies. [10] There has been considerable debate in legal scholarship about the degree to which governments should oversee and supervise institutions to which enforcement powers have been delegated. [11]
In 2017, of 265 policies for ocean protection only 13% had specific enforcement mechanisms. [17]
Enforcement mechanisms are major component of governance structures. [18] It has been suggested that an effective global public health security convention would require a governing body (or bodies) to enforce the framework with appropriate enforcement mechanisms. [19] Similar approaches include the concept of "climate clubs" of polities for climate change mitigation. In such, "border adjustments [...] have to be introduced to target those states that do not participate [...] to avoid shifting effects with ecologically and economically detrimental consequences", with such "border adjustments or eco-tariffs" incentivizing other countries to adjust their standards and domestic production to join the climate club. [20] The Paris Agreement may lack enforcement mechanisms. [21]
On a national level, penalties for non-complying countries could include:
Benefits for countries could include:
Institutions may choose to exercise discretion, thereby enforcing laws, regulations, or norms only in selective circumstances. [22] Some scholars, such as Joseph H. Tieger, have suggested that selective enforcement is an inherent component of all enforcement regimes, because it is impossible for enforcers to observe and catch every violation. [23] Other scholars, such as Margaret H. Lemos and Alex Stein, have suggested that "strategic" enforcement is a cost-effective method of achieving social benefits; by focusing enforcement on the worst violators, other violators will "downscale" their activities so that they do not appear to be the worst offender. [24]
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market manipulation.
Regulation is the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology and society, but the term has slightly different meanings according to context. For example:
Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to solve or address relevant and real-world problems, guided by a conception and often implemented by programs. The implementation of public policy is known as public administration. Public policy can be considered to be the sum of a government's direct and indirect activities and has been conceptualized in a variety of ways.
Policy is a deliberate system of guidelines to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. A policy is a statement of intent and is implemented as a procedure or protocol. Policies are generally adopted by a governance body within an organization. Policies can assist in both subjective and objective decision making. Policies used in subjective decision-making usually assist senior management with decisions that must be based on the relative merits of a number of factors, and as a result, are often hard to test objectively, e.g. work–life balance policy... Moreover, Governments and other institutions have policies in the form of laws, regulations, procedures, administrative actions, incentives and voluntary practices. Frequently, resource allocations mirror policy decisions.
Comitology in the European Union refers to a process by which EU law is implemented, modified or adjusted and takes place within "comitology committees" chaired by the European Commission. The official term for the process is committee procedure. Comitology committees are part of the EU's broader system of committees that assist in the making, adoption, and implementation of EU laws.
The World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control is a treaty adopted by the 56th World Health Assembly held in Geneva, Switzerland on 21 May 2003. It became the first World Health Organization treaty adopted under article 19 of the WHO constitution. The treaty came into force on 27 February 2005. It had been signed by 168 countries and is legally binding in 182 ratifying countries. There are currently 14 United Nations member states that are non-parties to the treaty.
Governance is the process of making and enforcing decisions within an organization or society. It is the process of interactions through the laws, social norms, power or language as structured in communication of an organized society over a social system. It is done by the government of a state, by a market, or by a network. It is the process of choosing the right course among the actors involved in a collective problem that leads to the creation, reinforcement, or reproduction of acceptable conduct and social order". In lay terms, it could be described as the political processes that exist in and between formal institutions.
In administrative law, rulemaking is the process that executive and independent agencies use to create, or promulgate, regulations. In general, legislatures first set broad policy mandates by passing statutes, then agencies create more detailed regulations through rulemaking.
In general, compliance means conforming to a rule, such as a specification, policy, standard or law. Compliance has traditionally been explained by reference to the deterrence theory, according to which punishing a behavior will decrease the violations both by the wrongdoer and by others. This view has been supported by economic theory, which has framed punishment in terms of costs and has explained compliance in terms of a cost-benefit equilibrium. However, psychological research on motivation provides an alternative view: granting rewards or imposing fines for a certain behavior is a form of extrinsic motivation that weakens intrinsic motivation and ultimately undermines compliance.
United States federal administrative law encompasses statutes, common law, and directives issued by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Executive Office of the President, that together define the extent of powers and responsibilities held by administrative agencies of the United States government. The executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the U.S. federal government cannot always directly perform their constitutional responsibilities. Specialized powers are therefore delegated to an agency, board, or commission. These administrative governmental bodies oversee and monitor activities in complex areas, such as commercial aviation, medical device manufacturing, and securities markets.
Forestry laws govern activities in designated forest lands, most commonly with respect to forest management and timber harvesting. Forestry laws generally adopt management policies for public forest resources, such as multiple use and sustained yield. Forest management is split between private and public management, with public forests being sovereign property of the State. Forestry laws are now considered an international affair.
A regulatory agency or independent agency is a government authority that is responsible for exercising autonomous dominion over some area of human activity in a licensing and regulating capacity.
The Mexican Secretariat for Home Affairs is the public department concerned with the country's domestic affairs, the presenting of the president's bills to Congress, their publication on the Official Journal of the Federation, and certain issues of national security. The country's principal intelligence agency, CISEN, is directly answerable to the Secretary of the Interior. The Secretary is a member of the President's Cabinet and is, given the constitutional implications of the post, the most important Cabinet Member. Additionally, in case of absolute absence of the President, the Secretary of Interior assumes the executive powers of the President provisionally. The Office is practically equivalent to Ministries of the Interior in most other countries and is occasionally translated to English as Ministry, Secretariat or Department of the Interior.
Dr. John T. Scholz is the Francis Eppes Distinguished Professor of Political Science and a Courtesy Professor of Law at Florida State University. As the first political scientist to formulate the "regulation game," which was later extended in influential work on responsive regulation by John Braithwaite and Ian Ayres. Scholz is widely regarded as one of the leading political scientists addressing regulatory enforcement.
Network governance is "interfirm coordination that is characterized by organic or informal social system, in contrast to bureaucratic structures within firms and formal relationships between them. The concepts of privatization, public private partnership, and contracting are defined in this context." Network governance constitutes a "distinct form of coordinating economic activity" which contrasts and competes with markets and hierarchies.
In political ecology and environmental policy, climate governance is the diplomacy, mechanisms and response measures "aimed at steering social systems towards preventing, mitigating or adapting to the risks posed by climate change". A definitive interpretation is complicated by the wide range of political and social science traditions that are engaged in conceiving and analysing climate governance at different levels and across different arenas. In academia, climate governance has become the concern of geographers, anthropologists, economists and business studies scholars.
Comply or explain is a regulatory approach used in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and other countries in the field of corporate governance and financial supervision. Rather than setting out binding laws, government regulators set out a code, which listed companies may either comply with, or if they do not comply, explain publicly why they do not.
The Administrative Procedure Act (APA), Pub. L. 79–404, 60 Stat. 237, enacted June 11, 1946, is the United States federal statute that governs the way in which administrative agencies of the federal government of the United States may propose and establish regulations and it grants U.S. federal courts oversight over all agency actions. According to Hickman & Pierce, it is one of the most important pieces of United States administrative law, and serves as a sort of "constitution" for U.S. administrative law.
Command and Control (CAC) regulation finds common usage in academic literature and beyond. The relationship between CAC and environmental policy is considered in this article, an area that demonstrates the application of this type of regulation. However, CAC is not limited to the environmental sector and encompasses a variety of different fields.
Primary legislation and secondary legislation are two forms of law, created respectively by the legislative and executive branches of governments in representative democracies. Primary legislation generally consists of statutes, also known as 'acts', that set out broad principles and rules, but may delegate specific authority to an executive branch to make more specific laws under the aegis of the principal act. The executive branch can then issue secondary legislation, creating legally enforceable regulations and the procedures for implementing them.
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