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Bradlow, Daniel --- "Assessing International Financial Reform" [2010] ELECD 628; in Faundez, Julio; Tan, Celine (eds), "International Economic Law, Globalization and Developing Countries" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: International Economic Law, Globalization and Developing Countries

Editor(s): Faundez, Julio; Tan, Celine

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848441132

Section: Chapter 4

Section Title: Assessing International Financial Reform

Author(s): Bradlow, Daniel

Number of pages: 27

Extract:

4. Assessing international financial
reform
Daniel Bradlow*

1. INTRODUCTION

The foundations for the current international financial governance
arrangements were laid at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944. At
this conference, which was attended by delegates from 44 countries, the
International Monetary Fund (IMF or Fund) and the International Bank
for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) were created, with the
IMF originally having US$8.5 billion in resources and the IBRD having
US$7.67 billion in prescribed capital.
The Fund's function was to use its authority and financial resources
to help create and support a rules-based international monetary system
that was designed to maintain stable exchange rates and relatively free
payments for current transactions (IMF Articles of Agreement: Art. I).
The IMF was expected to use its surveillance authority to oversee the
operation of the international monetary system and advise members on
their balance of payments and the maintenance of the par value1 of their
currencies. The founding states also anticipated that the IMF would use
its financial resources to help those member states that were experiencing
balance of payments problems to correct these problems in ways that were
not destructive of international or domestic prosperity.
The IMF's Articles of Agreement made clear that, while its member



* SARCHI Professor of International Development Law and African
Economic Relations, University of Pretoria, and Professor of Law, Washington
College of Law, American University, Washington DC, USA. The author wishes
to thank Maya Berinzon for her research assistance.
1 Under the ...