Small jurisdictions have become significant players in cross-border corporate and financial services. Their nature, legal status, and market roles, however, remain under-theorized. Lacking a sufficiently nuanced framework to describe their functions in cross-border finance - and the peculiar...

This paper's hypothesis is that the international standard setting bodies (SSBs) could improve the quality of their international standards by incorporating a human rights analysis. It focuses on five SSBs and seven of their international standards and its findings include the following: First,...

Deference mechanisms, such as substituted compliance and equivalence, serve important purposes: They open up markets to foreign service providers, avoid double regulation, and reduce market fragmentation. Yet, their current design also has considerable weaknesses. The biggest of these is that...

This paper studies the regulatory issues related to the “Sovereign Wealth Funds” (SWFs), described as “special purpose” government investment vehicles.Concerns have been expressed due to SWFs limited disclosure and transparency and their multiple investment objectives.While the risk of a...

Conventional economic analysis assumes that Central Counterparties (CCPs) may help to reduce systemic risk and avoid future financial crises by mandating the central clearing of over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives. This view largely goes unchallenged by governments, regulators, practitioners, and...

This article focuses on three recent proposed reforms to the international financial system: Basel III capital requirements, the enhanced use of supervisory colleges, and proposed bank resolution regimes. In addition to analyzing recent reform proposals, the article describes historical...