The chapter describes the contemporary history of efforts to manage risks to global financial stability. States seek to control the capital markets upon which they depend. But they sometimes also open them up, both to attract foreign investment capital and to provide outlets for national investments abroad. This makes them harder to control with national regulatory and supervisory policies and practices alone. Ever since the end of World War II, despite periodic crises and attendant backsliding, a trend toward capital market openness has gathered pace. Mindful of past sorrows, banks and other intermediaries, as well as the governments licensing and overseeing them, have sought new ways to cover the rising risks involved. Their joint project may accurately be viewed as an increasingly complex experiment in global reinsurance-as-governance. Unlike the nuclear case, the politics enabling it have been improvisatory, and relevant policy decisions have mainly been ad hoc in nature. This is explained by the sensitivity of the fiscal commitments implicated.

The chapter assesses whether the enforcement of extraterritorial sanctions through asset freezes is consistent with customary and treaty rules of international monetary law. After defining key concepts and describing the main characteristics of asset freezes, a definition of such measures through the lenses of international monetary law is provided. The research then moves, first, to discuss whether the imposition of asset freezes to enforce extraterritorial sanctions regimes can be deemed an exercise of internal or external monetary sovereignty and, second, whether unilateral (extraterritorial) sanctions can be considered to amount to exchange restrictions legitimately introduced for security reasons for the purposes of the Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The chapter concludes with a critical assessment of the IMF legal regime on unilateral (extraterritorial) sanctions.

This chapter explores the role of three global economic institutions (GEIs) in contemporary economic governance: the International Monetary Fund, (IMF), the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation (WTO). GEIs are key components of global economic governance, and their activities are central to the pursuit of accountability, efficiency and equity in the global economy. The impact of GEIs on states and societies is complex and widely varying assessments of the performance of these organisations can be found in the literature. Given the absence of theoretical consensus on the roles and functions of GEIs, the first part of the chapter examines competing perspectives on international organisations.

The chapter describe the pivotal role of central banks in stabilizing the international system after 1918. It explains how central bankers were drawn into peace-making efforts, although they had no formal role either in the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, or in the League of Nations, the world’s first multipurpose international organization that was set up in the wake of the war. In the 1920s, central banks would play a pivotal role in global governance, aided by the League’s Economic and Financial Organization (EFO), a forerunner of the institutions created at Bretton Woods after the Second World War. The EFO was instrumental in stabilization of central and eastern Europe, helping also to establish new central banks in the region. The chapter concludes by exploring the significance of central bankers’ breach with the EFO after 1928, the creation of the Bank of International Settlements, and the legacy of these developments for global order in the second half of the 20th century.

This chapter considers the main forms of investment treaties, exploring some leading examples such as the Energy Charter Treaty, the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement and the Comprehensive Trans-Pacific Partnership. It also discusses the role of some global organizations in facilitating international investment, notably the World Trade Organization and the World Bank.

This chapter is an introduction to the book. The chapter therefore starts with introducing the practical necessity for a leniency programme and the first use of a leniency programme in the United States. After this, the focus shifts to Asia. The chapter indicates that competition law in Asia is a relatively recent phenomenon, which, in turn, has had an impact on the implementation of the leniency programme in Asia. Since the Asian countries, more specifically China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and the Philippines, saw the success of the leniency programme in other jurisdictions, their embrace of the leniency programme was not only fast but also recent. This means that these leniency programmes have not yet been researched against the existing theoretical literature.

This chapter offers a plausibility probe of IST in the case of China and the contemporary liberal international order. The LIO – a multifaceted set of institutions covering a range of security and non-security issues – has contributed immensely to China’s economic growth, diplomatic influence, and national security. China, nonetheless, opposes some and embraces other parts of the international order. The chapter shows that existing theories of revisionism struggle to explain this pattern of cooperation and discord in China’s approach. It then traces China’s status aspirations in the post-Cold War period and applies IST’s predictions to China’s stances in various prominent international institutions. The chapter concludes that IST can broadly apply in this case across institutions and issue areas, though further research is required to decisively demonstrate this claim.

Because of continuing capital controls in the core countries during the immediate postwar period, the action in international monetary economics was initially mainly in the periphery, where the new IMF played a leading role. As the market system recovered, academic economics began to take an interest, with Robert Mundell (among others) working to extend the economists’ preferred macroeconomic modelling framework (the so-called IS–LM), to include the balance of payments. In time, the logical endpoint of these academic efforts was revival of the empirically discredited specie-flow model by Harry Johnson and others. Kindleberger’s practitioner wisdom resisted all these academic developments as distraction from real world financial developments.

International economic law is a field of public international law that regulates crossborder transactions in goods, services, and capital, as well as monetary relations between states. This chapter focuses on the branches of international economic law that govern international trade, international investment, and international monetary law. It sets out the historical background, fundamental rules, and dispute settlement systems in the areas of international trade law and international investment law, and it concludes by introducing international monetary law. International trade and international investment law share some fundamental principles, such as non-discrimination, although most favored nation treatment and national treatment take somewhat different forms in the two bodies of law. This chapter covers the Bretton Woods institutions, namely the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as well as the World Trade Organization (WTO).

International economic law is a field of public international law that regulates crossborder transactions in goods, services, and capital, as well as monetary relations between states. This chapter focuses on the branches of international economic law that govern international trade, international investment, and international monetary law. It sets out the historical background, fundamental rules, and dispute settlement systems in the areas of international trade law and international investment law, and it concludes by introducing international monetary law. International trade and international investment law share some fundamental principles, such as non-discrimination, although most favored nation treatment and national treatment take somewhat different forms in the two bodies of law. This chapter covers the Bretton Woods institutions, namely the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as well as the World Trade Organization (WTO).