Founded in 1992, the GHTF was created in "an effort to respond to the growing need for international harmonization in the regulation of medical devices."

In another chapter, riffs on postwar Japanese bureaucrats and Eliot Spitzer of New York, among other topics, suggest a need for international regulatory harmonization.

This Working Group serves as an open national public-private sector forum on issues associated with new animal drug approvals, biologics, licensing, producer quality assurance programs, international harmonization, etc.

Other recent developments in intellectual property law, such as the America Invents Act, stress international harmonization.

The final thesis is that international harmonization of competition policies is essential, and probably a supranational competition authority is needed as well.

FDA's goals in participating in international harmonization are:

We want to see greater progress made on the issue of international harmonization of standards.

It is crucial if we are going to have a global market and a globally competitive market within the European Union that we move forward on international harmonization.

In fact, this should obviously be the clear aim of international harmonization.

The report offers specific recommendations ranging from the utopian (international harmonization of accounting rules) to the mundane (faster payments clearing).