BRICS, G20 and global economic governance reform

The article reviews cooperation between the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and their collective efforts to promote reform of international financial institutions, shape global financial regulation and improve financial cooperation. The authors focus on the BRICS–G20 engagement for global economic governance reform. To assess the progress so far, the study employs original quantitative data on the BRICS and G20 commitments and compliance, and qualitative analysis of the BRICS and G20 discourse and the transformation of the international economic architecture. The results suggest that, contrary to the common perception of the BRICS as a challenger of the traditional western-dominated international monetary and financial system, it acts in a cooperative manner, seeking to make the international financial architecture and global regulation more representative and responsive to emerging markets and developing economies needs, and strengthen the stability and resilience of international and domestic financial markets.

Reform of Banking Laws and Regulations in Iran

The law reform process entails government policies and plans for the liberalization, privatization and deregulations of the economy including the banking and money markets. The International financial institutions (IFIs), International Development Agencies (IDAs) and the International Financial Architecture have pioneered law reform initiatives based on the rule of law practice and good governance. The dominant theory advocated by Perry-kessaris postulates that a sound legal system is attractive for foreign direct investment (FDI). The bilateral investment treaties (BITs) contain international law standards which can be used as a model for reforming laws and institutions in the host state including prudential regulation of banking and finance. Iran – a resource-rich country has signed many BITs with capital-exporting countries indicating its willingness to enforce the rule of law on the international level.

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.

The Global South Debt Revolution That Wasn’t

In this article, we analyse how international crises and conflicts over sovereign debt have transformed the agenda of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Geneva-based organization founded in 1964 and whose history is closely linked to the G77 group of developing countries. We show how UNCTAD’s projects for structural reform of the international financial architecture were contested and ultimately rejected in the 1970s. Such defeats were a blow to the transformative goals that UNCTAD had initially set to achieve. In the 1980s, UNCTAD gradually became a technical agency and its mandate restricted to providing expert assistance and support to developing countries during their negotiations with the Paris Club. Meanwhile, the mandate to produce expertise at the macro level (the so-called ‘upstream’ area), was effectively transferred to the IMF and World Bank. With the development of the Debt Management Financial Analysis System (DMFAS), UNCTAD went from promoting systemic change in international financial architecture to sponsoring the micro-management of domestic policies as remedy to over-indebtedness. But we also show that UNCTAD did not always restrict itself to doing such ‘downstream’ work, i.e., improving debt issuing capacities and technologies of developing countries. While UNCTAD’s recent project on fair principles of lending and borrowing principles conforms to what’s expected from the group of advanced countries, another project involving the creation of an international mechanism of sovereign debt restructuring functioned as a disturbance to this fragile downstream–upstream division of labour between international organizations.

The Making of Zimbabwe’s Currency and Economic Crisis: International Financial Architecture, Nationalism, and Economic Policies 1980–2000

This chapter examines the making of Zimbabwe’s currency and economic crisis from a historical perspective. It suggests that colonial legacies played an important role, together with the connections forged through the international financial architecture. Both these factors should be considered in examining why the country continues to face sustained economic crisis. Although the chapter acknowledges the importance of local political factors that many scholars have examined, it provides an alternative perspective that stresses a neglected aspect in the study of the Zimbabwean crisis. Attention must be given to the importance of inherited models and discourses of economic management and the ways in which they have been embedded into the fabric of economic administration. The chapter interrogates these influences, focusing in particular on the role of the System of National Income accounting in Zimbabwe’s descent into debt and aid dependency. It argues that these factors should be included in explanations of the multilayered political and economic crisis that Zimbabwe has been facing for the past two decades.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEW INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL ARCHITECTURE AT THE NATIONAL FINANCIAL SYSTEMS LEVEL

The fundamental purpose of this paper is to analyze the transformations in the international financial architecture and their impact on the national financial system. The analysis of the international financial architecture's functioning mechanism suggests its similarity with the software system structure. It is static in the way the system functionality is decomposed and divided into implementation teams. The efficiency of international financial architecture's functioning depends mainly on how balanced and interconnected its elements are. Thus, according to systems theory, only by overcoming the deformation of the international financial architecture at all its levels, it is possible to increase the financial system's overall performance. In this regard, maintaining a dynamic balance in the development of the international financial architecture as an integral unit of its structural elements and functions is becoming of urgent importance. This aspect of the research allows the creation of an instrumental and methodological basis for forecasting the directions for further developing the international financial architecture in the context of the globalization of the world economy at the national financial systems level. This study concludes that the complex solution of the international financial architecture challenges involves creating the foundations for implementing progressive structural changes in the economy and contributing to sustainable economic development.