Soft Law and the Global Financial System
Rule Making in the 21st Century

Newly expanded and revised, this book explains why informal standards are used to coordinate global financial rules.

Chris Brummer (Author)

9781107128637, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 29 September 2015

364 pages, 2 b/w illus.
23.5 x 15.7 x 2.3 cm, 0.64 kg

'In the aftermath of the financial crisis, cross-border standards and standard-setters have proliferated, as has the deployment of international financial law as 'soft law' - a species of commitments that are explicitly nonbinding yet often coercive. Chris Brummer's second edition of Soft Law and the Global Financial System (the first edition became an instant classic) is an indispensable reference for those working or studying in the field and constitutes a major contribution to the scholarship of financial regulation.' Rosa M. Lastra, Chair in International Financial and Monetary Law, Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary, University of London

This book explains how international financial law 'works' and presents an alternative theory for understanding its purpose, operation, and limitations. Drawing on a close institutional analysis of the post-crisis financial architecture, it argues that international financial law is often bolstered by a range of reputational, market, and institutional mechanisms that make it more coercive than classical theories of international law predict. As such, it is a powerful, though at times imperfect, tool of financial diplomacy. Expanded and revised, the second edition of Soft Law and the Global Financial System contains updated material as well as an extensive new chapter analyzing how international standards and best practices have been operationalized in the US and EU in the wake of the financial crisis. It remains an essential tool for understanding global soft law for political scientists, lawyers, economists, and students of financial statecraft.

Introduction: the perils of global finance
1. Territoriality and financial statecraft
2. The architecture of international financial law
3. A compliance-based theory of international financial law
4. How legitimate is international financial law?
5. Soft law and the global financial crisis
6. Implementing the G-20 agenda: a transatlantic case survey
7. The future of international financial law.

Subject Areas: Banking law [LNPB]