Money Talks: International Law and the Governance of International Finance

The international financial system is one of the most powerful forces shaping both the global economy and the domestic political economy in many countries around the world. As a result, the international community has made considerable efforts to promote more effective global governance of the international financial system. In fact, through the efforts primarily of non-state actors, it has developed different sets of non-binding international standards that are applicable to the financial sector. They have been developed in different forums, by different actors, with different objectives, with different potentials for enforcement, and to a substantial extent in isolation from each other. Nevertheless, these international norms and standards, albeit to varying degrees, have had an important impact on the global financial system and on national financial regulatory frameworks in many countries. This paper, which is a contribution to a book that I am co-editing on the use of hard and soft international law to produce social change, argues that the international norms and standards applicable to international finance offer some interesting general lessons about the governance of the global financial system and the use of non-binding international standards to promote change