Global Finance

This chapter explores how financial globalization of today fails to deliver enough of the right sort of finance necessary to promote development and productive investment in societies. The contemporary global financial architecture serves primarily to enrich affluent investors and major financial institutions while putting societies and their people at grave risk of harm, including from global financial crises. The chapter explores these issues by first examining the history of the global financial architecture from the nineteenth century to the present. It moves on to critique current institutions of law mainly on grounds of justice. The chapter addresses problems associated with the regulation and supervision of banks, at the international level a form of soft law forming the core of the global financial architecture. It also explores how the power of global finance makes real reform at either the domestic or international level very difficult. Finally, the chapter exposes injustices associated with the resolution of sovereign debt crises, with a focus on the recent crisis for Greece. It considers serious shortcomings of the international legal system in this area, including how the contract approach of international law sought to resolve the crises in a manner in which the less advantaged are made much worse off.