Author
Mr Gunn Jiravuttipong
Organisation/Institution
UC Berkeley Law
Country
UNITED STATES
Panel
International Law
Title
Legal Scholarship in OECD Accession: An ASEAN Perspective
Abstract
In 2024, Indonesia and Thailand officially initiated the OECD accession process, marking a significant moment in Asia's engagement with global regulatory governance. Despite the legal complexity and geopolitical significance of OECD accession, which requires alignment with over 250 legal instruments spanning diverse policy areas, this process has attracted remarkably little attention in international legal scholarship. This paper addresses that gap by conducting a systematic empirical mapping of OECD-related scholarship in leading journals. Using a database of journals in international law and intentional relations, this study analyzes publication patterns across top journals including AJIL, EJIL, JIEL, ICLQ, and AJCL. The analysis yields three key findings. First, the scarcity assumption is confirmed: while WTO accession, particularly China involvement and its implications, generates substantial legal scholarship, OECD accession remains absent. Second, disciplinary asymmetries emerge: international relations scholars examine accession politics, while international law scholarship refers to OECD only as a model law or standard without theorizing accession as a legal diffusion process. Third, where OECD-related topics appear, they cluster around specific policy regimes such as anti-corruption, tax transparency, and supply-chain due diligence, often also driven by complementary forces from U.S. or EU pressure or regulatory collaboration. This paper is written as part of the consortium for Study and Analysis of International Law Scholarship (SAILS) by exposing gaps in international legal scholarship production. It proposed that accession process to international organization, in this case the OECD, could be a topic of international law scholarships discussion as a mechanism of regulatory diffusion and a strategic geopolitical tool via international law. The topic is particularly important for Southeast Asian states as a middle power, navigating U.S.-China competition through parallel engagement with OECD and BRICS. Examining Thailand and Indonesia as case studies, the paper illustrates how accession process create opportunities for legal scholarship to inform meaningful domestic.
Biography
Gunn Jiravuttipong is a JSD candidate and Miller Fellow at UC Berkeley School of Law. His research examines regulatory diffusion through international law, employing mixed qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze how legal norms travel across borders via international organizations and regulatory networks. His work focuses on several areas: digital platform regulation, digital competition law, geopolitics and law and implications to regulatory reform. His publications and current projects includes the investigateion how the EU Digital Markets Act influences global competition law, how OECD accession processes function as mechanisms of regulatory diffusion in Southeast Asia, and how international legal scholarship shapes domestic policy reform.
