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The rapid progression of the Internet has impacted dramatically on contemporary society, transforming communications, business and trade. The global nature of the Internet has challenged traditional models of regulation. What has emerged is a new international framework, governed by an increasing number of actors and regulatory processes. By drawing upon the regulatory experience of the Internet, including an examination of the forces and dynamics that have shaped the regulatory framework, this paper considers the regulatory developments of another emerging and ubiquitous technology, nanotechnologies. It examines the rapid advancement and promise of nanotechnology-based products and processes, and the policy and regulatory challenges facing government, regulators, and industry alike. The paper argues that while the regulatory future for nanotechnologies appears to be uncertain, and highly contested, regulatory regimes will most likely reflect the commodities and services that the technology helps to produce. Anything other than this is unlikely because the ‘nanotechnology genie’ is already out of the bottle, and regulatory issues will evolve as the nature of the technology itself evolves.
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Mary Rundle, Beyond Internet Governance: The Emerging International Framework for Governing the Networked World (Boston: The Berkman Centre for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, 2005).
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Information Economy Report 2007–2008 – Science and Technology for Development: The New Paradigm of ICT (New York: UN, 2007).
Ibid., 25.
Robert Litan, Law and Policy in the Age of the Internet (Washington DC: Brookings Institute, 2001), 1.
UNCTAD, Information Economy Report.
Austrade, E-commerce in the US: A Practical Guide for Australian Exporters (Canberra, Australian Government, 2006).
Anne D'innocenzio, ‘Online Sales Expected to Rise 17% in 2008’, USA Today, 8 April 2008. Available at: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/industry/2008-04-08-online-sales-growth_N.htm (accessed 29 June 2008).
Forrester Research 2006, as cited in Austrade, E-commerce.
Rundle, Beyond Internet Governance.
See, e.g. Litan, Law and Policy; Milton Mueller, John Mathiason and Hans Klein, ‘The Internet and Global Governance: Principles and Norms for a New Regime’, Global Governance 13 (2007): 237–54.
Mueller et al., ‘The Internet’.
Rundle, Beyond Internet Governance
Lawrence Lessig, ‘The Law of the Horse: What Cyberlaw Might Teach’, Harvard Law Review 113, no. 2 (1999): 505–6.
Rundle, Beyond Internet Governance, 10.
Litan, Law and Policy, 37.
As noted by Milton Mueller, ‘ICANN and Internet Regulation’, Communications of the ACM 42, no. 6 (1999): 41–3.
Milton Mueller, Ruling the Root: Internet Governance and the Taming of Cyberspace (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2002).
Mueller, ‘ICANN’, 49)
Vicktor Mayer-Schoenberger and Malte Ziewitz, Jefferson Rebuffed – The United States and the Future of Internet Governance (Boston, MA: John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2006), 6.
Ibid., 16.
Nanda Kumar and Abbe Mowshowitz, ‘Who Should Govern the Internet?’, Communication of the ACM 49, no. 2 (2006), 35.
David Beetham, The Legitimation of Power (London: Macmillan, 1991), 98–9.
Mark C. Suchman, ‘Managing Legitimacy: Strategic and Institutional Approaches’, Academy of Management Review 20, no. 3 (1995): 571–610.
George Gilligan, ‘Markets, Offshore Sovereignty and Onshore Legitimacy’, in Global Financial Crime: Terrorism, Money Laundering and Offshore Centres, ed. D. Masciandaro (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 7–59.
As noted by Lyombe Eko, ‘Many Spiders, One Worldwide Web: Towards a Typology of Internet Regulation’, Communication Law and Policy 6 (2001): 477.
Ibid.
See, e.g. Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu, Who Controls the Internet? Illusions of a Borderless World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).
Litan, Law and Policy, 41.
UNCTAD, Information Economy Report, 1.
Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, ‘Nano-Product Inventory - Consumer Products’, Woodrow Wilson Centre for International Scholars. Available at: www.nanotechproject.org/consumerproducts (accessed July 12, 2008).
As of July 2008.
As noted by John Weckert, ‘An Approach to Nanoethics’, in New Global Regulatory Frontiers in Regulation: The Age of Nanotechnology, ed. Graeme Hodge, Diana Bowman and Karinne Ludlow (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2007), 49–66.
National Nanotechnology Initiative, National Nanotechnology Initiative: FY 2009 Budget & Highlights (Washington DC: NNI, 2008).
Ibid., 1.
Ibid., 1.
Jurgen Altmann, ‘Military Uses of Nanotechnology: Perspectives and Concerns’, Security Dialogue 35, no. 1 (2004): 65.
Ibid.
Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, Nano-Product Inventory.
See, e.g. Altman, ‘Military Uses’.
Jurgen Altmann and Mark Gubrud, ‘Military, Arms Control, and Security Aspects of Nanotechnology’, in Discovering the Nanoscale, ed. Davis Baird, Alfred Nordmann, and J Joachim Schummer (Amsterdam: IOS Press, 2004), 33–40.
Milind Kandlikar et al., ‘Health Risk Assessment for Nanoparticles: A Case for Using Expert Judgment’, Journal of Nanoparticle Research 9 (2007): 138.
Ibid.
Andre Nel et al., ‘Toxic Potential of Materials at the Nanolevel’, Science 311 (2006): 622.
Craig A. Poland et al., ‘Carbon Nanotubes Introduced into the Abdominal Cavity of Mice Show Asbestos Like Pathogenicity in a Pilot Study’, Nature Nanotechnology 3 (2008): 423.
Andrew D. Maynard, Nanotechnology: A Research Strategy for Addressing Risk (Washington DC: Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, 2006).
Ibid., 8.
Gary E. Marchant and Doug. J. Sylvester, ‘Transnational Models for Regulation of Nanotechnology’, The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 34, no. 4 (2006): 714–25.
European Commission, Amended Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council Establishing a Common Authorisation Procedure for Food Additives, Food Enzymes and Food Flavourings, COM(2007) 672 Final, 24 October (Brussels: Commission of the European Communities, 2007). European Commission, Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on Cosmetic Products, 2008/0025 (COD) (Brussels: Commission of the European Communities, 2008). One exception to this would appear to be the current discussions associated with the recast of Regulation (EC) 258/97 concerning Novel Foods and Novel Food Ingredients.
Andrew D. Maynard and Julie A. Moore, ‘Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies: A Partnership of the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars and the Pew Charitable Trusts’. Paper presented at the UK/Japan Workshop on Health, Environmental and Societal Issues of Nanotechnologies, 2005, 19.
Marchant and Sylvester, ‘Transnational Models’, 717.
Peter Hough, ‘Poisons in the System: The Global Regulation of Hazardous Pesticides’, Global Environment Politics 3, no. 2 (2003): 23.
Diana Bowman and Graeme Hodge, ‘Governing Nanotechnology without Government?’, Science and Public Policy 35, no. 7 (2008): 475–487.
Gary E. Marchant and Doug. J. Sylvester and Ken Abbott, ‘Risk Management Principles for Nanotechnology’, NanoEthics 2, no. 1 (2008): 50–51.