Karl-Heinz Ladeur

The discussion on the emergence of global administrative law is centered around the question: “Is it law?” and problems of accountability. This is a narrow perspective which ignores the autonomy of the administrative “internal law” generated by administrative agencies themselves. Domestic administrative law is only to a much lesser extent a product of courts or legislators than hitherto taken for granted. For global administrative law the entanglement of administrative practice and normativity is crucial. The creation of administrative law by the experimental network of decisions and public-private cooperation and as a consequence its permanent self- transformation should be considered as a necessity. This is why it should not come as a surprise that the instruments and forms of global administrative law are generated by transnational administrative networks of agencies. The evolution of both domestic and transnational administrative law will allow for new heterarchical forms of accountability and legitimation once the focus on a hierarchical concept of delegation is given up. Both for domestic and global administrative law the adoption of new approaches to ex post monitoring of administrative action and learning seems to be more promising than the traditional orientation on the binding force of legal rules ex ante.