Reflections from the 2025 Soft Law Summit
Howard Smith, Executive Director, Center for Industry Self-Regulation
BBB National Programs’ Center for Industry Self-Regulation’s (CISR) 2025 Soft Law Summit reinforced for me just how vital collaboration has become in shaping governance for emerging technologies. What began as an exploration of self-regulation in areas such as AI, advertising, and high-risk industries, became a clear demonstration that “soft law” is now the infrastructure for trust between fast-moving industries and slower-moving governments.
The Soft Law Summit is an event that convenes industry leaders, academics, and policy makers to dissect and examine how the challenges and opportunities for America’s business sectors have been and can be addressed by independent industry self-regulation.
This year the event was held on October 7 in Washington, DC, co-hosted with George Washington University's Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration, in collaboration with Arizona State University's Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law Center for Law, Science, and Innovation.
From the opening sessions, the conversation centered on the space between corporate responsibility and regulation, a space increasingly filled by voluntary standards and ethical codes.
As BBB National Programs and CISR President and CEO Eric Reicin reminded us, this middle ground is where innovation and accountability must coexist. His framing of soft law as “a tool for responsible governance in a world that cannot wait” echoed throughout the day.
Across speakers and panel discussions, there was shared recognition that traditional regulation is often too slow for technologies that evolve with stunning, sometimes exponential, speed.
George Washington University Law School Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Aram Gavoor, provided insights into a leaner administrative state, illustrating that industries will increasingly have to fill the regulatory vacuum and define and enforce their own boundaries. In addition, discussions highlighted how effective industry self-regulation can work to complement traditional regulatory schemes.
Gavoor said, “Soft law is flexible and adaptive, but many critics view it as toothless when it comes to enforcement. On the other hand, hard law is blunt and inflexible but has a variety of enforcement options. Ideally, we come up with a solution that combines the best of both these worlds.”
The Summit also highlighted how education and industry are converging to sustain this work.
The unveiling of CISR’s curriculum on industry self-regulation, developed with ASU Law and supported by the Templeton Foundation, underscored the need to prepare future leaders to navigate both hard law and soft systems of accountability. The curriculum has been designed for graduate programs, specifically for law, business, and public policy schools, and it explores the conditions that allow self-regulation to flourish, identifies where it has and has not worked, and examines new potential use cases.
Hearing a student describe developing a “quit button” for AI models captured exactly why these conversations matter; it is not about compliance for its own sake but about designing systems that reflect our best intentions as innovators, consumers, and citizens.
As the discussions moved through case studies on self-regulation in industries from nuclear energy to railroads, and into reflections from Microsoft and Meta’s Oversight Board, one takeaway stood out: industry self-regulation is most effective when it earns legitimacy through accountability.
Whether in content moderation or safety engineering, soft law succeeds when it’s credible, not just convenient.
This year’s Summit underscored that soft law gains power through momentum. Its future depends on maintaining that energy—with industries, academics, and policymakers continuing to build together, not in parallel. At its best, industry self-regulation is a collective act of responsibility, one that evolves as quickly as the innovations it seeks to guide.
BBB National Programs’ Center for Industry Self-Regulation’s (CISR) 2025 Soft Law Summit reinforced for me just how vital collaboration has become in shaping governance for emerging technologies. What began as an exploration of self-regulation in areas such as AI, advertising, and high-risk industries, became a clear demonstration that “soft law” is now the infrastructure for trust between fast-moving industries and slower-moving governments.
The Soft Law Summit is an event that convenes industry leaders, academics, and policy makers to dissect and examine how the challenges and opportunities for America’s business sectors have been and can be addressed by independent industry self-regulation.
This year the event was held on October 7 in Washington, DC, co-hosted with George Washington University's Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration, in collaboration with Arizona State University's Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law Center for Law, Science, and Innovation.
From the opening sessions, the conversation centered on the space between corporate responsibility and regulation, a space increasingly filled by voluntary standards and ethical codes.
As BBB National Programs and CISR President and CEO Eric Reicin reminded us, this middle ground is where innovation and accountability must coexist. His framing of soft law as “a tool for responsible governance in a world that cannot wait” echoed throughout the day.
Across speakers and panel discussions, there was shared recognition that traditional regulation is often too slow for technologies that evolve with stunning, sometimes exponential, speed.
George Washington University Law School Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Aram Gavoor, provided insights into a leaner administrative state, illustrating that industries will increasingly have to fill the regulatory vacuum and define and enforce their own boundaries. In addition, discussions highlighted how effective industry self-regulation can work to complement traditional regulatory schemes.
Gavoor said, “Soft law is flexible and adaptive, but many critics view it as toothless when it comes to enforcement. On the other hand, hard law is blunt and inflexible but has a variety of enforcement options. Ideally, we come up with a solution that combines the best of both these worlds.”
The Summit also highlighted how education and industry are converging to sustain this work.
The unveiling of CISR’s curriculum on industry self-regulation, developed with ASU Law and supported by the Templeton Foundation, underscored the need to prepare future leaders to navigate both hard law and soft systems of accountability. The curriculum has been designed for graduate programs, specifically for law, business, and public policy schools, and it explores the conditions that allow self-regulation to flourish, identifies where it has and has not worked, and examines new potential use cases.
Hearing a student describe developing a “quit button” for AI models captured exactly why these conversations matter; it is not about compliance for its own sake but about designing systems that reflect our best intentions as innovators, consumers, and citizens.
As the discussions moved through case studies on self-regulation in industries from nuclear energy to railroads, and into reflections from Microsoft and Meta’s Oversight Board, one takeaway stood out: industry self-regulation is most effective when it earns legitimacy through accountability.
Whether in content moderation or safety engineering, soft law succeeds when it’s credible, not just convenient.
This year’s Summit underscored that soft law gains power through momentum. Its future depends on maintaining that energy—with industries, academics, and policymakers continuing to build together, not in parallel. At its best, industry self-regulation is a collective act of responsibility, one that evolves as quickly as the innovations it seeks to guide.