"Human rules:" a new approach to regulation

Belgium, which will take up the presidency of the EU on 1 July for six months, organised a (restricted) conference on 17-18 June in Ghent. It stated its ambition to take a fresh look at regulatory quality and management, settin g up a good looking dedicated website: http://www.humanrules.be/ Extract from the homepage: "It is clear that some of the actual regulatory mechanisms have shown deficiencies and need to be revised and even re-designed. Recent reports and the launching of the open stakeholder consultation on smart regulation aim at activating this debate. This year's meeting of the Directors and experts of better regulation (DBR) will contribute to this debate by looking at this theme from new angles but with one common factor : people will be in the centre of our attention". This was the theme of an original conference, including a "field work" session (canvassing local inhabitants), the purpose being to unleash "creative thinking." The site already offers a definition of "human rules", as the next step for regulatory quality: it may be worth watching for the announced "booklet on human rules" compiled from participants' contributions.