Suchergebnisse

"The global crises of the early 21st century have tested the international financial architecture. In seeking to ensure stability, governments have regulated financial and capital markets. This in turn has implicated international investment law, which investors have invoked as a shield against debt restructuring, bail-ins or bail-outs. This book explores whether investment law should protect against such regulatory measures, including where these have the support of multilateral institutions. It considers where the line should be drawn between legitimate regulation and undue interference with investor rights and, equally importantly, who draws it...[Scholars] assess the key challenges facing decision makers, analyze arbitral and treaty practice and evaluate ways towards a balanced system of investment protection in the financial sector. In doing so, they offer an...analysis of the interaction between investment protection and financial regulation in fields such as sovereign debt restructuring and bank rescue measures."--

La communication dont nous publions ici le texte, et qui n'engage que son auteur, a été présentée lors du Colloque international de droit humanitaire organisé en décembre dernier, à l'occasion du centenaire de la Déclaration de Bruxelles, et dont on lira plus loin un compte rendu (Red.).Il serait ambitieux de vouloir traiter ici tons les aspects et tous les problèmes qu'évoque le thème proposé pour ce colloque. En effet, les différentes formes qu'ont prises les conflits depuis la fin de la 2e guerre mondiale, et celles qu'ils pourraient prendre dans le futur, sont de vastes sujets qui nécessiteraient des études approfondies avant de se livrer à quelques réflexions d'ordre prospectif. De nombreux écrivains, diplomates, journalistes, publicistes pensent que les conflits armés généralisés sont peu vraisemblables: on assisterait plutôt à des conflits armés aux formes imprécises, et rarement à des luttes ouvertes entre forces armées régulières. Mais, en matière de conflit armé, c'est bien souvent l'imprévu qui arrive!

Scholars have convincingly argued that theoretical frameworks that combine international influences and domestic factors are needed to understand political regime developments. We argue that exogenous shifts in the balance of power between great powers ('power politics') spark demonstration effects. These, in turn, are filtered into the domestic political system of smaller states via changes in political polarization – but with the effects being conditional on the domestic vulnerability of democracy. To assess this framework we turn to interwar Europe, where the international order changed from undergirding democracy to facilitating autocratic rule. An analysis of three countries (Poland, Austria and Denmark), backed by a more general glance at the remaining interwar cases, shows that the interaction between demonstration effects, pressure from great powers and the domestic resilience of democracy offers substantial leverage in accounting for patterns of democratic regression.

While new conventional wisdom warns that developing countries should be aware of the risks of premature capital account liberalization, the costs of not removing exchange controls have received much less attention. This paper investigates the negative effects of exchange controls on trade. To minimize evasion of controls, countries often intensify inspections at the border and increase documentation requirements. Thus, the cost of conducting trade rises. The paper finds that a one standard-deviation increase in the controls on trade payment has the same negative effect on trade as an increase in tariff by about 14 percentage points. A one standard-deviation increase in the controls on FX transactions reduces trade by the same amount as a rise in tariff by 11 percentage points. Therefore, the collateral damage in terms of foregone trade is sizable.

Rapid and profound changes are taking place in international development. The past two decades have promoted the ideals of participation and partnership, yet key decisions affecting people's lives continue to be made without sufficient attention to the socio-political realities of the countries in which they live. Embedded working traditions, vested interests and institutional inertia mean that old habits and cultures persist among the development community. Planning continues as though it were free of unpredictable interactions among stakeholders. This book is about the need to recognise the