International regulatory cooperation: Case studies and lessons learnt

A report for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

We researched and summarised practitioners’ views on the lessons learnt from their experiences of International Regulatory Cooperation (IRC). IRC involves cooperation by governments on development of regulatory policies and practices.

NZIER were commissioned by the New Zealand Government (MBIE and MFAT) to prepare four brief IRC case studies that focused on drawing out the lessons learnt. To synthesise the learnings, the lessons from each case were extracted and grouped together and tested with members of the New Zealand Government Regulatory Practice Initiative Steering Group.

The four case studies were: 

• Trans-Tasman competition policy
• Asia Region Funds Passport involving Australia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand and Thailand
• ASEAN intellectual property
• ASEAN cosmetics.