Home | Databases | WorldLII | Search | Feedback Edited Legal Collections Data

Baxter, Lawrence G. --- "Internationalisation of Law – The ‘Complex’ Case of Bank Regulation" [2010] ELECD 417; in Hiscock, Mary; van Caenegem, William (eds), "The Internationalisation of Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: The Internationalisation of Law

Editor(s): Hiscock, Mary; van Caenegem, William

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849801027

Section: Chapter 1

Section Title: Internationalisation of Law – The ‘Complex’ Case of Bank Regulation

Author(s): Baxter, Lawrence G.

Number of pages: 35

Extract:

1. Internationalisation of law ­
the `complex' case of bank
regulation
Lawrence G. Baxter*

INTRODUCTION

The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) has precipitated a slew of those `once
in a lifetime' events that seem to be reshaping governance frameworks
for the long term. Such is surely the situation for international banking
regulation.1 After years of congenial quiescence, largely in the custodian-
ship of economists, the subject has effervesced, out of one international
financial crisis after another, fomenting pseudo-legal forms and exhibit-
ing a level of complexity that would have delighted the most scholastic
medieval mind. Heads of state profess involvement and powerful nations
and regions, once able to impose their will on smaller nations, are learn-
ing to pay attention to the experience of other countries.2 International
regulatory organisations and public policy experts have been enjoying
a field day diagnosing what went wrong and recommending what to do
next.3
At the end of March 2009, during a summit of industrialised and devel-
oping countries known as the G-20, an analyst for the Financial Times
wryly pondered whether the chaotic system of finance that has swept the
globe over the past two decades could ever be controlled effectively, noting
that numerous grand declarations of joint intent on the part of many
nations have not been matched by significant concerted action.4 The GFC
has indeed brought forth a concentration of such pledges of concerted
action such as is seldom seen. The G-20 summit is one such example. ...