Global Economic Governance

Doing Business in Emerging Markets reflects the challenges and opportunities facing international businesses and professionals when operating in emerging markets, particularly in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008. This book is filled with valuable information and real-world facts and examples from across the globe. It covers all the key topics on conducting business in emerging markets, addressing important aspects of entering a new market, as well as post-entry issues and strategies, such as dealing with corruption, the application of the United States Foreign Corrupt Practice Act (FCPA), international market research and more, demonstrating how the emerging market context challenges traditional international business theories and even best practices.

As China leads the global economy in terms of commodities, trading and other economic compelled to further globalize at unrivaled pace. The underlying questions remain. Why do China needs to globalize? Why do companies need to go beyond the Chinese market?

As Co-Chair for the International Center for Information Ethics, I am jointly responsible (along with ICIE Founder and Chair, Rafael Capurro) for promoting and maintaining the founding vision of the academic community of ICIE, for managing its global-wide membership, and for attending to and updating member credentials, contacts, and communications, as well as assisting in the maintenance of the ICIE website.

The question of interpreting international agreements in light of other competingprinciples and obligations has, over the last two decades, been drawn into and included within the debate over the fragmentation of international law. However, some features of the two elements here at stake – investment agreements and competing regulations – place the subject on a different ground from these past discussions. This paper will not focus only on the systemic interpretation of investment treaties and other international law rules, but it will go through the different ways and techniques proposed by parties to disputes and arbitral tribunals to consider investment treaties and other concerns – more precisely, human and environmental rights: the integration of treaties with domestic regulations; the interpretation of investment agreements in light of other international rules; the application of investor rights and other international rules and regulations; the non-application of investment treaties conflicting with ius cogens; and finally the re-affirmation of a domestic sphere of autonomy in which states are free to introduce reasonable new regulations of general, public interest.

In the context of the debate about the advances and difficulties of transatlantic regulatory cooperation, accounting standards clearly qualify as one of the few cases where this cooperation so far has been feasible.  The core argument of this chapter is that this rare success of early transatlantic regulatory cooperation cannot primarily be attributed to the US willingness to adapt to EU-supported (and nearly global) IFRS-standards, but rather to the previous convergence of the EU on an Anglo-American accounting model.

This chapter asks whether there is a structurally rooted conflict between triad and non-triad MNCs. In order to do so, it undertakes a theoretical discussion of how different business communities are likely to respond to global governance issues, both as subject and as likely opponent to existing global governance arrangements. In the absence of direct empirical evidence on non-triad multinational corporations` (NTMNC) take on global governance issues we take a more indirect approach in order to formulate theoretically grounded expectations for NTMNCs' response to global economic governance. As a first step we ask whether NTMNCs are different and, if they are, in what sense. More particularly, do they have significantly different growth strategies or business models? As a second step we take on the question whether the differences between the national business systems in which triad and non-triad MNC s are rooted do matter. For this purpose we use the Varieties of Capitalism approach as a heuristic device in order to identify the institutional preferences of NTMNCs. During a third and final step, we contrast these preferences with the existing global governance institutions (as mainly shaped by the preferences and practices of triad-MNCs) and chart the corresponding potential for future conflict.

E-governance is more than just a government website on the Internet. The strategic objective of e-governance is to support and simplify governance for all parties; government, citizens and businesses. The use of ICTs can connect all three parties and support processes and activities. In other words, in e-governance electronic means support and stimulate good governance. Therefore, the objectives of e-governance are similar to the objectives of good governance. Good governance can be seen as an exercise of economic, political, and administrative authority to better manage affairs of a country at all levels. It is not difficult for people in developed countries to imagine a situation in which all interaction with government can be done through one counter 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, without waiting in lines. However to achieve this same level of efficiency and flexibility for developing countries is going to be difficult. The experience in developed countries shows that this is possible if governments are willing to
decentralize responsibilities and processes, and if they start to use electronic means. This paper is going to examine the legal and infrastructure issues related to e-governance from the perspective of developing countries. Particularly it will
examine how far the developing countries have been successful in providing a legal framework.

Globalization via the digital age is upon us, demanding a new ethics and an intercultural awareness while the dialectics of globalism and cyberspace mandate a committed reflection on what the synthesis between the digital realm and global citizenship entails. In many ways, the borders that previously separated us as citizens physically and culturally have begun to dissipate, replaced by a call for an intercultural accountability and a form of global citizenship that, on one hand, surpasses borders, patriotism, and nationalism alike, but while on the other, demands an understanding and respect for the cultural idiosyncrasies among us, acknowledging the unique existential paradox of universal citizenship that posits each of us as both stranger and citizen on a commonly shared globe.

What is cosmopolitan in the digital age? Is a global digital citizen the same as merely a digital citizen? While talk of digital citizenship has increased in recent years, usually centered on a capitalist drive, encouraging a full electronic participation in society and a responsibility to digital commerce, many questions remain unanswered.  Is the netizen the citizen of a democratic state, and of digital democracy? As a citizen of the world interacting online, how will one’s “rights” and “duties” be determined? And are these “rights” universal, and in such a case, what does “universal” mean? What are the legal parameters of netizenship, and what will they be as globalization further takes hold? Is democracy critical to citizenship, or is it not? What are the political landscapes of global citizenship in the digital age? And last of all, is the concept of digital citizenship even tangible? Is it real?

The Bretton Woods twins – the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank – have become largely irrelevant for both
developed and developing countries. The market has enthroned the US dollar as the international reserve currency,
with little role for the IMF which has lost its role as international
lender of last resort. And the World Bank’s capital is inadequate to meet the massive requirements of infrastructure in the
developing world.

Excerpt: While buying a cup of coffee at a local café one morning, I was transported to an exotic far-off land. Immersed in the aroma of coffee brewing and surrounded by pictures of farmers picking coffee and their children smiling, I could imagine who had grown the coffee in my mug. Marketing materials littered the countertop, thanking me for buying fair trade certified coffee and telling me that I was making a difference and that fair trade works. My single cup of coffee was said to help poor farmers. One of the posters declared, “every purchase matters,” and another said I was helping end poverty “one cup at a time.” The promotional materials explained that my purchase brought me into a direct and intimate relationship with farmers as if the handle of my coffee mug was a farmer’s hand I was shaking to congratulate him or her on a job well done.
          Fair trade marketing and advocacy rely on the idea that fair trade increases connectedness between Global South producers and Global North consumers. While fair trade does reduce the number of intermediaries in the supply chain as compared to the free trade system for most commodities (Raynolds 2002; Nicholls and Opal 2005; Adams and Raisborough 2008, 1169), it also serves to reinforce racist and colonial distinctions between the poor Global South farmer and the benevolent Global North consumer. Fair trade may channel slightly more income into agricultural communities, but it fails to address the colonial and capitalist structures that produce the impoverishment of farmers on an ongoing basis.

In this exclusive interview, Marcus Goncalves, International Business Program Chair, Nichols College, Massachusetts and Lead-author of the new book: Advanced Economies and Emerging Markets: Prospects for Globalization, speaks with Jide Akintunde, Director, Nigeria Development and Finance Forum, on the inter-dynamics of advanced economies and emerging markets and understanding the macroeconomic environment of emerging and frontier market blocs – which are central themes of their new book.