L'efficacia dell'autoregolamentazione : l'esperienza dell'autodisciplina pubblicitaria in Italia

The increasing complexity of contemporary legal systems has highlighted the role of public and private actors in the law-making process. This theme, widely explored by socio-legal theory, has also been taken into consideration by the European institutions, according to which, in order to improve the quality and effectiveness of law making, it would be necessary to integrate and support the existing legislative, judicial and administrative instruments with self-regulation and co-regulation tools.

A particularly successful example of self-regulatory organization is the Istituto Italiano di Autodisciplina Pubblicitaria that has been monitoring the fairness and correctness of commercial communication since 1966. Its effectiveness in guiding the conduct of advertising operators and protecting consumers is widely recognized. However, in a legal system like the Italian one, which still appears to be strongly influenced by a formalistic notion of sources of law, full coordination between legislative instruments and self-regulation does not seem easy to achieve. [Publisher's text]