Review of Foreign Laws

The following summaries of national laws relating to industrial policy do not attempt to catalogue every law or program that arguably falls under the rubric of industrial policy. Rather, to varying degrees, they pay special attention to several themes that recur in all discussions of industrial policy: the promotion of certain industries and the management of the decline of others; the formation of a consensus between labor and management on an industry’s future; and the creation of a plan for future development. These summaries illustrate the diversity of the legal tools that various countries use to promote industrial development. This diversity suggests at least one conclusion: The type of legal tools a country chooses to implement its industrial policy is not a phenomenon of development. The laws of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG or West Germany), the United Kingdom, Canada, and Japan illustrate the diverse forms that industrial policy can take in developed nations. The laws of Malaysia, the Republic of Korea (ROK or South Korea), and the Ivory Coast demonstrate that the governments of developing nations promulgate rules which are no less diverse than those of highly industrialized countries.