Regulating Torts

This chapter raises three points about regulating torts. First, using a regulatory lens as a broad supplemental perspective can illuminate legal research in some ways. It enables one to ask fruitful questions; for example, why tort remedies are not twinned with accountability regimes. Nevertheless, the regulatory lens can distort the picture by tending to identify incorrectly the concerns that influence those who construct the private law of torts: judges and the counsel that address them. Second, there is a real danger that the regulatory lens will be used to downgrade private law to the role of mere servant to a multi-layered system of governance. Third, in contrast to the claims Hugh Collins makes for contract law, in recent years tort law has not been called upon to play a significantly more pivotal role in the governance mechanisms of society than beforehand.