Part VII International Securities, Including Markets and Clearing Systems, 18 The Architecture of International Financial Regulation
This chapter examines the term “international financial architecture”, which is of fairly recent origin and has been used only occasionally prior to the Asian crisis. It explains how international financial architecture provides a somewhat misleading impression of the nature of the process by which the institutions and policies that shape the global financial system came into being. It also describes international financial architecture as more of the outcome of an evolutionary process than the product of intelligent design. This chapter highlights changes in the international financial and monetary systems and in the arrangements for providing meaningful and cohesive oversight in response to changes in the world economy and in the political environment. It also analyses the development of a body of normative texts referred to as international financial regulation.