International Law Commons^™

Avenues To Foreign Investment In China’S Shipping Industry—Have Lease Financing Arrangements And The Free Trade Zones Opened Markets For Foreign Non-Bank Investment?, Rick Beaumont

Rick Beaumont

No abstract provided.

International Tax Cooperation, Taxpayers’ Rights And Bank Secrecy: Brazilian Difficulties To Fit Global Standards, Carlos Otávio Ferreira De Almeida

Carlos Otávio Ferreira de Almeida

This paper analyses the conflict between two constitutionally protected rights: privacy and transparency. The latter has been invoked increasingly often by international organizations committed to tackling harmful tax practices, and the former has been recognized as a crucial human right. In an interconnected world, domestic laws are not capable of countering cross-border tax evasion strategies, so that transparency has become one of the most important topics in international tax cooperation, but it is doubtful whether tax authorities can access banking data in order to obtain information to exchange. The judicial reserve clause upheld by the Brazilian Supreme Court represents a …

Legal And Institutional Remedies For Middle East States Wishing To Develop And Increase Foreign Direct Investment, Griffin Weaver

Griffin Weaver

The cost to overhaul a legal system is astronomical. For example, before and after the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1980’s several states received billions of dollars in loans to help change their “legal systems” and make them more western friendly. A couple of these states were West Germany and Japan, which received roughly 1.5 billion and 2.4 billion USD in loans. Considering most of this money was given in the 1950’s, the value today is probably three times or more those amounts. Without this aid both states would have been unable to make the changes to their …

The Imf’S Reassessment Of Capital Controls After The 2008 Financial Crisis: Heresy Or Orthodoxy?, Philip J. Macfarlane

Philip J. MacFarlane

While the IMF allows countries to limit the flow of capital through the use of capital controls, it has since the 1980s discouraged this practice and instead promoted capital account liberalization as a means for developing countries to attract the foreign investment needed for economic growth. The 2008 financial crisis, however, prompted the IMF to reconsider this view and increasingly support the use of capital controls for countries that were vulnerable to the effects of volatile capital flows. In 2012, the IMF changed its official position on the use of capital controls from permitted but discouraged to accepted in certain …

The Law And Economics Of Microfinance, Katherine Helen Mary Hunt

Katherine Helen Mary Hunt

Financial inclusion may be jargon which appeals to international donors and academics, but the strategic implementation in developing countries is often based on international du jour priorities, such as microfinance. The topic of microfinance is highly debated in the academic literature, although little empirical work has been published. Further, no literature to date has considered microfinance from a law and economics perspective. This paper seeks to contribute to the gap in the literature by considering how microfinance has evolved to address the credit market failure, and how microfinance regulation should be designed to promote long term financial inclusion via financially …

Has The Cftc Gone Too Far In Trying To Keep The American Economy Safe From Cross-Border Swaps?, Gabriel Lau

Gabriel Lau

With the passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (“Dodd-Frank”) in 2010, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) received the daunting task regulating swap markets. Following two iterations of proposed guidance and comment periods, the CFTC released its finalized “Interpretive Guidance and Policy Statement Regarding Compliance with Certain Swap Regulations” (“Guidance”) on July 26, 2013. In the Guidance, the CFTC gives its interpretation and policy outlook for promulgating rules with respect to the regulation of cross-border swaps. This paper examines both the critiques of the Guidance, including issues of international comity and rule promulgation procedures, and …

Book Review: The Three And A Half Minute Transaction: What Sticky Boilerplate Reveals About Contract Law And Practice, Andrea J. Boyack

Andrea J Boyack

This review situates Gulati & Scott’s findings with respect to sovereign debt instruments and the contracting process in the context of a legal profession on the brink of change. Gulati and Scott’s book addresses the inexplicable failure of lawyers to respond to a sovereign debt litigation outcome by clarifying a boilerplate provision after an adverse judicial interpretation. Their fascinating study of boilerplate in sophisticated transactional legal practice is timely and compelling both in terms of the specific story it tells, namely the persistence of the pari passu clause in sovereign debt instruments, as well as its broader implications: Structural flaws …

Korea’S Financial Regulatory Reforms Responding To The Global Financial Crisis Of 2008: Assessments And Future Prospects, Dong Won Ko

Dong Won Ko

Since the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC), we have seen many reforms, as each country has endeavored to reform its financial regulatory system, including banking and financial regulation. The reforms attempted to respond to the crisis in line with the new global regulatory framework initiated by G-20s and international financial organizations. The Korean Government has also proposed new legislation and financial reforms, in response to the GFC, including reinforcement of protection for financial consumers and strengthening the corporate governance in financial institutions. This article seeks to review the regulatory reform measures, and to analyze whether such measures follow those global …

International Money Laundering: The Need For Icc Investigative And Adjudicative Jurisdiction, Michael R. Anderson

Michael Anderson

Money laundering is one of the most pressing issues in the realm of international financial crimes. One of the biggest issues involved in international money laundering is the problem of adjudication. There is no international organization that currently hears these sorts of claims, forcing nations to adjudicate these crimes on their own, often without adequate resources to effectively investigate and enforce their money laundering statutes.

This article argues that, in order to more effectively prevent and adjudicate international money laundering offenses, the International Criminal Court should adopt an international money laundering statute designating these activities as a crime within the …