Peer Review of Financial Regulators

This project studies the function, effects and legitimacy of transnational peer review with a specific focus on Australia’s financial regulatory framework and agencies.

Transnational peer review of national policymaking is an increasingly common tool in global governance. It involves public policy decision-making in one state being reviewed by a committee of peers from other states, who can be policymakers, national or international regulatory officials and even academic experts.

After being pioneered by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in the 1990s, the use of peer review has grown significantly in recent years. Efforts to cope with important global challenges - including strengthening financial stability in the face of crisis, climate change, terrorism or a global pandemic - have employed variants of transnational peer review. As a result, Australia has been subject to transnational peer reviews in different regulatory fields, it has participated in reviews of other jurisdictions and has even financed regulatory peer review in our region through development assistance.

Despite its growing ubiquity, transnational peer review is opaque as a governance tool, understudied by scholars and underdeveloped in law. It holds both peril and promise for the oversight of regulatory decision-making given the challenges that independent regulatory authorities present for democracy and the rule of law.

Led by Associate Professor Andrew Edgar and Associate Professor Yane Svetiev, this project seeks to shed theoretical and empirical light on transnational peer review as it applies to Australian financial regulation.

A key objective is to uncover the channels through which transnational peer review influences Australian law and regulation. It includes empirical study of the conduct of peer review at the international level and its effects on domestic practice. The project research also elaborates a normative framework for the role of peer review as a transnational tool of regulatory oversight vis-à-vis traditional oversight by national legislatures, executives and courts.

This project is funded by Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Projects (DP) 2021, Grant ID: DP210102688.