Victims of their own success abroad? Why the withdrawal of US transparency rules is hindered by diffusion to the EU and Canada

Recent years have seen significant efforts to reduce corruption in the oil, gas and mineral industries. Under the Obama administration, rules were adopted obliging stock-exchange-listed extraction companies to disclose payments to domestic and foreign governments, an initiative which soon spread to the European Union and Canada. Under Trump, however, policy preferences changed, and the disclosure requirements were withdrawn. This article investigates how diffusion of United States (US) disclosure rules has mitigated the effects of the withdrawal process through insights on norm diffusion, market power and rules applicable beyond states’ territorial borders. It is argued that when (1) rules with broad external applicability (2) diffuse to multiple influential jurisdictions and (3) address large multinationals in (4) an internationally interdependent sector, global standards of regulation may emerge. As these conditions are largely (although not entirely) fulfilled, it is likely that most large US multinationals will remain at least partially subject to payment disclosure obligations.