The regulation of political advertising is one of the more difficult issues that democracies have to deal with. On the one hand, the ability of citizens to inject their ideas into the political  discourse  is central to the protection offered by the rights to freedomof expression andtopoliticalparticipation.2 However, unlimited and unregulated paid advertising gives better-­‐  funded candidates and parties an unfair advantage, and can even lead to a political dependence on campaign fundraising, undermining the integrity of the democratic system. As a
result, jurisdictions need to strike a balance to ensure that parties have the ability to get their message out, while simultaneously preventing one side from dominating the debate. In this context, it is important to regulate not only the candidates and political parties that are directly contesting the elections, but also their third party backers, in order to prevent wealthy interlopers from making an end-­‐run around election laws. This comparative analysis examines different approaches to regulation of political advertising, comparing their strengths and weaknesses. It provides an overview picture of the different options, rather than an in-­‐depth analysis. However, by looking at a few key examples, the Report illustrates some of the main systems for regulating political advertising around the world. The Report is in four parts, starting by examining regimes which rely on light touch regulation, going on to more intrusive regimes which prohibit commercial broadcast advertisements, and then regimes where commercial broadcast advertising is permitted