This book offers a skilled arms-length evaluation, from a legal perspective, of the main criticisms that have been leveled recently at the key global economic organizations – that is, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and its fellow multilateral developmental banks (MDBs), and the World Trade Organization (WTO). THE FUTURE OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORGANIZATIONS stands out from most of the growing body of literature on the IMF, MDBS, and the WTO in two main respects: the book’s scope and the author’s experience. Whereas numerous commentators have focused on particular strengths and weaknesses of one or the other of the GEOs, and have argued for changes on the basis of specific areas of operation, this book takes a wider view to examine all the GEOs at once. This broader scope reveals commonalities in the criticisms. For example, complaints about so-called “democracy deficit” obviously can be applied to all GEOs but with different nuances in emphasis and sting. Against the background of his own experience as a legal counsel for one of the regional MDBs and for the IMF and a legal career that has focused on international economic law, Head distills the swarm of complaints leveled at the IMF, MDBS, and the WTO into 25 specific criticisms and then offers succinct explanations of why some of those criticisms should be dismissed, why some of them are valid, and how those valid criticisms should form the basis for an important restructuring of the institutions, including amendments to the charters that establish and govern their operations. Head speaks largely to three audiences here: persons in various professional positions; persons in national governments and politics around the world who are responsible for implementing their government’s foreign policy; and to more general curious readers on whose involvement in civic life any society ultimately depends. Published under the Transnational Publishers imprint.

An assessment of the relationship between the major international economic organizations (IEOs) and the developing countries. The emphasis is on the role of multilateral actors and therefore the organizations discussed are intergovernmental rather than nongovernmental.

In the opinions proffered, in the preoccupations shared, indeed even in the silence of omissions, these contributions by distinguished key practitioners from major representative organizations that play a role in the international economic system will be warmly welcomed by the community of scholars, policymakers and practitioners concerned with international economic law.

This book is both breathtaking in its scope and impressive in its attention to legal and institutional detail in situating developing countries in the evolving body of international economic law. Essays in this volume canvas most important areas of international economic law, including international trade law, international financial regulation, the regulation of foreign direct investment and multinational corporations, foreign aid, the enforcement of human rights standards and core international labour standards on multinational corporations, international enforcement of anti-corruption conventions, international competition law, international intellectual property rights, and international environmental law. A pervasive theme, compellingly developed, in most of these papers is the asymmetric structure of international institutions that generate rules in these various areas, in which developing countries are mostly rule takers, rather than equal participants. The current global financial crisis may provide a welcome opportunity for re-evaluating these institutional asymmetries. In any such re-evaluation, this book will provide a veritable cornucopia of constructive new insights.

Invaluable to students and those approaching the subject for the first time, An Introduction to International Relations, Second Edition provides a comprehensive and stimulating introduction to international relations, its traditions and its changing nature in an era of globalisation. Thoroughly revised and updated, it features chapters written by a range of experts from around the world. It presents a global perspective on the theories, history, developments and debates that shape this dynamic discipline and contemporary world politics. Now in full-colour and accompanied by a password-protected companion website featuring additional chapters and case studies, this is the indispensable guide to the study of international relations.

Presuming no technical background in economics, this volume is a comprehensive and timely introduction to the WTO's situation in the global economy and will appeal to anyone interested in world trade.

Economic and social progress requires a diverse ecosystem of firms that play complementary roles. Making It Big: Why Developing Countries Need More Large Firms constitutes one of the most up-to-date assessments of how large firms are created in low- and middle-income countries and their role in development. It argues that large firms advance a range of development objectives in ways that other firms do not: large firms are more likely to innovate, export, and offer training and are more likely to adopt international standards of quality, among other contributions. Their particularities are closely associated with productivity advantages and translate into improved outcomes not only for their owners but also for their workers and for smaller enterprises in their value chains. The challenge for economic development, however, is that production does not reach economic scale in low- and middle-income countries. Why are large firms scarcer in developing countries? Drawing on a rare set of data from public and private sources, as well as proprietary data from the International Finance Corporation and case studies, this book shows that large firms are often born large—or with the attributes of largeness. In other words, what is distinct about them is often in place from day one of their operations. To fill the “missing top†? of the firm-size distribution with additional large firms, governments should support the creation of such firms by opening markets to greater competition. In low-income countries, this objective can be achieved through simple policy reorientation, such as breaking oligopolies, removing unnecessary restrictions to international trade and investment, and establishing strong rules to prevent the abuse of market power. Governments should also strive to ensure that private actors have the skills, technology, intelligence, infrastructure, and finance they need to create large ventures. Additionally, they should actively work to spread the benefits from production at scale across the largest possible number of market participants. This book seeks to bring frontier thinking and evidence on the role and origins of large firms to a wide range of readers, including academics, development practitioners and policy makers.