SELF-REGULATION AND CO-REGULATION IN THE AUDIOVISUAL SECTOR

The European Union has spent decades promoting the role that self-regulation and co-regulation can play as a complement to the legislative, judicial and administrative mechanisms to compliance with certain objectives of public law in audiovisual matters beyond what is provided by hard law. In this way, self-regulation helps to achieve a high standard of respect for deontological values and consumers' rights present in this area, much of which are constitutional rights. The audiovisual field of self-regulation in Spain ranges from the function of establishing a soft law legal standards above the mandatory standard, first; to a corrective function which provide alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, in second place; and finally providing an executive function to prove compliance with the voluntary standard based on an equally self-regulated compliance model. Finally, the scope of self-regulation in the audiovisual field is of such intensity that there is a truly intersection with the world of mandatory legal norms with that of voluntary self-regulation, making those voluntary rules to participate in some legal effects of hard law.