From leaky buildings to financial crashes, from mining disasters to deep water oil spills and from poor patient care to financial misselling, regulation can fail to prevent disasters arising from the risks it is meant to manage.

Although each disaster is unique in many respects, analysis of the regulatory failings that contributed to those disasters reveals a number of common themes.

When regulation fails, it fails in quite consistent ways. Dissecting regulatory disasters to find out what lessons can be learned, this lecture, now transcribed here, was presented by Professor Julia Black, as the 2014 Sir Frank Holmes Memorial Lecture in Policy Studies on 1 April 2014.

Julia Black is Professor of Law and Pro Director for Research,  London School of Economics and Political Science.