This course previously formed part of the graduate program offered by ACORE. From 2008 - the course is available to Law students as part of the Graduate Law program and to students outside of the law program.

If you are not a Law student, please contact pgadmin.law@anu.edu.au for a permission code. 

Objectives: This course focuses on the legal framework of economic regulation, or how governments or other actors exercise coercive influence over four principal elements -entry, price, quality and conditions of service, and access obligations or obligations to serve all on reasonable conditions.  These elements are seen not only in establishing regulatory bodies in connection with the privatisation of utilities but increasingly can be seen to characterise the government response in areas where market competition is not considered sufficient to achieve the desired regulatory outcomes.  The control of genetically modified crops or allocation of water, delivery of welfare services, even allocation of domain names or credit ratings may be seen as examples of economic regulation.

This course was developed to introduce those involved or interested in economic regulation to the constitutional and administrative law checks and balances on the exercise of regulatory power, the private law alternatives to regulatory intervention, and the likely effects of regulatory intervention given the underlying legal framework.  Through a focus on the utility regulation the course provides an understanding of the crucial role played by the underlying legal framework in establishing the forms of regulation found in the Australian economy and how the economic justifications for such regulation in turn has helped to shape that legal framework. 

The course will include a one day workshop for those without a law degree and who are not enrolled in the Graduate Law Program at the ANU to introduce the core legal concepts that will be examined in the course.  The main component of the course will feature 26 hours taught intensively over 4 days.  A mix of lectures, discussion-based seminars, student-prepared presentations, case studies and visiting speakers may be used. The latter have been chosen to give a range of views and approaches across the spectrum of industries.

Students must rely on the Approved Assessment which will be posted to the course homepage on the ANU Law website, prior to the commencement of the course.

Intensive 26 teaching hours (Plus 7 hours for the introductory workshop if applicable)

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