Soft Law and the Global Financial System (2^nd Ed., Revised edition) Rule Making in the 21st Century

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.

Chris Brummer is a Professor of Law at Georgetown University, Washington DC and the faculty director of the Institute for International Economic Law. He is also the project director of the Transatlantic Finance Initiative at the Atlantic Council and a senior fellow at the Milken Institute.