Whish, Richard --- "Introduction" [2012] ELECD 824; in Whish, Richard; Townley, Christopher (eds), "New Competition Jurisdictions" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: New Competition Jurisdictions

Editor(s): Whish, Richard; Townley, Christopher

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9780857939517

Section Title: Introduction

Author(s): Whish, Richard

Number of pages: 8

Extract:

Introduction
Christopher Townley and Richard Whish

There has been an explosion in new competition legislation in the past 20
years. This is in response to enormous changes in political thinking and
economic behaviour that have taken place around the world.
There are now more than 100 systems of competition law in the world;
several others are in contemplation. Competition laws will be found in all
continents and in all types of economy ­ large, small, continental, island,
advanced, developing, industrial, trading, agricultural, liberal and post-
communist.1
There are many explanations for the adoption of these new competition
laws. In some cases international trade agreements contained obligations
on a particular state to pass competition legislation: this was a feature of
negotiations between what is now the European Union (EU) and numerous
countries ­ for example, in Central and Eastern Europe which subsequently
went on to become full members of the EU ­ and also of the Free Trade
Agreement entered into between the United States (US) and Singapore in
2003. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have
often made the adoption of competition legislation one, among many
others, of the conditions for the availability of loans. The United Nations
Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has, for a long time,
been an advocate of competition legislation. In some jurisdictions one finds
that, although there is no general competition law, there are nevertheless
sector-specific competition rules for the operators of utilities, in particular
in the telecommunications sector: Hong Kong and ...