Presenter:

Anu Bradford, Henry L. Moses Professor of Law and International Organization, Columbia University

Discussants:

Anne-Lise Sibony, Professor of European Law, Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium

Richard Stewart, University Professor, NYU

Thomas Streinz, Adjunct Professor of Law, NYU School of Law

Moderator: Gráinne de Búrca, Florence Ellinwood Allen Professor of Law, Faculty Director, Hauser Global Law School, Co-Director, Jean Monnet Center for International and Regional Economic Law & Justice

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The Brussels Effect challenges the prevalent view that the European Union is a declining world power. It argues that notwithstanding its many obvious challenges, the EU remains an influential superpower that shapes the world in its image through a phenomenon called the “Brussels Effect.” The Brussels Effect refers to the EU’s unilateral power to regulate global markets. Without the need to resort to international institutions or seek other nations’ cooperation, the EU has the unique ability among nations today to promulgate regulations that shape the global business environment, elevating standards worldwide and leading to a notable Europeanization of many important aspects of global commerce. Different from many other forms of global influence, the Brussels Effect entails that the EU does not need to impose its standards coercively on anyone—market forces alone are often sufficient to convert the EU standard into the global standard as multinational companies voluntarily extend the EU rule to govern their global operations. In this way, the EU wields significant, unique, and highly penetrating power to unilaterally transform global markets, including through its ability to set the standards in diverse areas such as antitrust regulation, data protection, online hate speech, consumer health and safety, or environmental protection.