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The purpose of the paper is to explore the initial coin offering (ICO) statements as “soft law” instrument used to regulate disruptive innovations.

The research is based on the qualitative content analysis of 40 ICO statements issued by regulators in 37 countries by applying a custom-made coding table.

The research shows that “soft law” is used predominantly by high-capacity jurisdictions. “Soft law” allows for more flexibility and less technological and business neutrality. The findings also show the contradiction between empirical evidence and public sentiment: it seems that the widespread notion that virtual currencies have connotations with money laundering/financing of terrorism (ML/FT) is not shared by the regulators, who are more concerned by the fraud. Finally, it was found that the standard-setting bodies are lagging behind in providing guidance on the emergence technologies.

The content analysis is based on 40 statements, which is a limited set of data. The method might be subject to interpersonal bias, although arrangements were made to ensure the uniformity of coding process.

The findings imply that soft law is an attractive risk-mitigation tool when the object of regulation is still evolving but the risks are present. Soft law also might contradict with the “technology and business neutrality” principle which requires further research. Finally, the findings show the need for more active involvement of the standard setting bodies.

This is the first in-depth research of the ICO-related statements as “soft law” instruments. It also offers a new perspective on the issue of financial innovations regulation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine in detail the positive and negative aspects of selected soft law initiatives and the relevance of hard laws in the pursuit of corporate social responsibility (CSR).

Soft law initiatives are categorized into company codes, industry‐initiated codes, and general codes in order to determine more accurately the effectiveness of the codes in enforcing CSR standards. A number of factors relevant in determining the effectiveness of such codes are identified and applied. Partnerships between soft law initiatives and hard laws are illustrated.

Soft law initiatives are necessary tools in CSR. However, transparency, implementation, monitoring and compliance mechanisms are core areas in which the effectiveness of the initiatives needs improvement. Categorizing the initiatives helps to identify specific areas needed for improving effectiveness.

The initiatives examined are limited to those relevant for human rights, the environment and anti‐corruption. The paper selects a number of relevant initiatives and does not attempt to examine all initiatives in these sectors. The reference to hard laws focuses on anti‐bribery laws.

The paper provides useful information on improving the effectiveness of soft law initiatives, which are the current modes for enforcement of CSR; the relevance of hard laws in CSR; and the role of NGOs in ensuring CSR.

The paper identifies the evolution of universal standards in CSR and calls for a universal approach which aims to address the need for adequate and effective enforcement.

The purpose of this paper is to map out the voluntary‐regulatory dynamics of the discourse of human rights in a business context within the European Union (EU) regulatory environment.

The paper examines the human rights and corporate social responsibility (CSR) discourses at the EU institutional level, in order to identify the interplay between soft and hard regulatory instruments that may contribute to the “human rights for business” normative landscape.

A renewed focus at the international level on business and human rights has recently produced a United Nations (UN) framework document mapping corporate and state responsibilities in the area of human rights (the UN SRSG Ruggie Framework). Emphasising voluntariness as main tool, but also recognizing the importance of domestic uses of corporate law, of the investment and trade agreements, as well as of the international development cooperation tools, this framework report is in need of “operationalisation”. Starting from the interface between domestic and international developments in CSR and human rights for business, the paper explores the extent to which the European CSR context can offer tools and instruments towards such an operationalisation of the corporate responsibility for human rights and for social values generally. The article charts the dynamic relationship between EU soft regulatory attempts and the community mandatory legislation. Together, these define the EU's policy on CSR and human rights.

The paper reveals an innovative normative mosaic, made up of complex soft and hard regulatory instruments that should enable the EU to integrate economic, trade and human rights policies and, ultimately, to contribute to the new CSR framework proposed at the international level.

This study aims to examine the impact of soft law and institutional signalling on voluntary reporting of environmentally sensitive companies in Thailand.

Environmental disclosures in annual reports and sustainability reports of 108 listed companies for the years 2010–2014 were analysed using a checklist of un-weighted scores combined with panel data modelling.

The results show increasing trends of voluntary reporting dominated by disclosures on emissions data. Thai sustainability reporting guidelines released in 2012 were found to have a significant effect on the amount of disclosures of companies in the agriculture and food sector only. Results show that the age of the company and media attention have a significant positive relationship with environmental disclosures. Profitability is found to have a negative relationship with the level of environmental disclosures.

This study adds to existing environmental reporting literature from the perspective of soft law and institutional signalling and their impact on environmental reporting in the context of an economically developing, environmentally sensitive and in a Buddhist cultural setting country, Thailand.

This paper looks at Thai environmental disclosures from the perspective of soft law and institutional signalling, which is an original and unique contribution to CSR literature, considered through the lens of institutional legitimacy.

This study aims to investigate why anti-corruption statutes are not efficient in Nigeria’s upstream petroleum industry.

This study is a doctrinal legal research that embraces a point-by-point comparative methodology with a library research technique.

This study reveals that corruption strives on feeble implementation of anti-corruption legal regime and the absence of political will in offering efficient regulatory intervention. Finally, this study finds that anti-corruption organisations in Nigeria are not efficient due to non-existence of the Federal Government’s political will to fight corruption, insufficient funds and absence of stringent implementation of the anti-corruption legal regime in the country.

Investigations reveal during this study that Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) operations are characterised with poor record-keeping, lack of accountability as well as secrecy in the award of oil contracts, oil licence, leases and other financial transactions due to non-disclosure or confidentiality clauses contained in most of these contracts. Also, an arbitration proceeding limit access to their records and some of these agreements under contentions. This has also limited the success of this research work and generalising its findings.

This study recommends, among other reforms, soft law technique and stringent execution of anti-corruption statutes. This study also recommends increment in financial appropriation to Nigeria’s anti-corruption institutions, taking into consideration the finding that a meagre budget is a drawback.

This study reveals that corruption strives on feeble implementation of anti-corruption legal regime and the absence of political will in offering efficient regulatory intervention. Corruption flourishes due to poor enforcement of anti-corruption laws and the absence of political will in offering efficient regulatory intervention by the government.

The study advocates the need for enhancement of anti-corruption agencies' budgets taking into consideration the finding that meagres budgets are challenge of the agencies.

This chapter outlines incorporation of voluntary environmental accounting standards into national law as evidenced by the Scandinavian experience. In illustrating such hardening of soft law approaches it highlights difficulties national authorities face when attempting to regulate globalised commercial entities with extra-territorial activities. Adoption at national level of these standards into legally binding obligations illustrates convergence of global governance standards even where there is no central authority or designed codification.

Doctrinal legal research and literature review. To illustrate the incorporation of voluntary standards at a national level, Scandinavian examples (Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland) were chosen – frequently upheld as best practice in requiring the reporting of environmental information financial reports.

The research shows that the most proactive national authorities in this regard are endorsing certain voluntary standards and rewarding their use with reduced regulatory burden. I first outline certain voluntary environmental standards and then illustrate adoption of these standards into legally binding frameworks.

The main limitation was difficulty in finding English language versions of some national regulations.

This chapter seeks to illustrate a normativisation of soft law frameworks into legally binding national obligations. Viewed through the phenomenon of Global Administrative Law it would seem evident that national authorities are willing to adopt various international voluntary standards to regulate the increasingly globalised actions of companies.

Voluntary standards and the various reporting methods of non-financial information is an extremely broad regulatory sphere with decentralised regulation and parallel regulatory frameworks. This chapter, in illustrating the convergence of environmental governance standards through normativisation of previously voluntary standards, will assist the reader in attaining an overview of the extent of this regulatory convergence.

This paper aims to examine the extent of successes and challenges of adoption and implementation of Financial Action Task Force (FATF) codes in member states by highlighting the influence of the FATF anti-money laundering policy framework on money laundering (ML) and the way forward in heightening the fight against the fast-evolving nature of ML and terrorist financing activities.

This paper, based on a purely qualitative desktop study, is drawn on historical information from FATF’s recommendations, its periodic reports, publications and other secondary sources such as books, journal articles on financial systems and scholarly literature.

The challenges found include difficulty in domestic coordination, capacity constraints of countries, inadequate operational resources and assessment complexities in the implementation of FATF standards. Nonetheless, FATF has chalked some successes such as the harmonization of legislation and enforcement efforts through the provision of coordination points. Other successes include flexibility in response to new threats, adoption of the mutual evaluation process, which advanced peer pressure on defaulting members, enhancement of the international financial space and the enhancement of the legitimization of FATF’s processes.

This paper provides a description of the successes and challenges of the FATF’s 40 + 9 recommendations since its establishment. The outcome would alert countries and players within the international financial space to invest more in capacity building and the entrenchment of the recommendations into their domestic laws.

This paper aims to provide an overview of different issues related to jurisdictional arbitrage found in general regulatory arbitrage literature and their projection to the specific area of cryptoasset regulation.

By distinguishing any parallel, analogous and neighbouring concepts, this paper attempts to clarify the notion of jurisdictional arbitrage. By discussing certain aspects and effects of three regulatory regimes, BitLicense, 5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD5) and the European Commission’s Proposal for a Regulation on Markets in Crypto-assets (MiCa), it makes clear that national/State/regional policymakers have already failed to create arbitrage-proof regulatory frameworks by acting exclusively within their jurisdictional limits. Against this background, this paper discusses briefly regulatory competition and international harmonisation as alternative solutions to inappropriate and ineffective national/regional legislative approaches.

Based on a structured theoretical analysis, this paper reaches three important findings. First, academics, international bodies and other commentators use inaccurately the general concept of “regulatory arbitrage” to refer to the specific problem of jurisdictional arbitrage creating in this way an interpretative confusion; second, commentators confuse jurisdictional conflicts with jurisdictional arbitrage; third, the solutions to this regulatory problem can actually be found in its underlying causes.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first specific-issue paper on jurisdictional arbitrage in the context of cryptoasset regulation and aims to trigger further academic discussion on this evolving phenomenon and inform the development of future cryptoasset regulation combatting this problem.