The Global Governance Agenda and the Role of the G20

The international financial crisis and the recession that followed it have made clear the need to rethink global economic governance. The devastating socio-economic impact of the crisis makes it essential that the international community launch a debate on what the limits of economic liberalisation should be (especially financial liberalisation), how to minimise the risks of openness through adequate regulation and what institutional mechanisms are necessary to improve international economic cooperation. This debate has been muffled over the past two decades because of excess confidence both in market liberalisation and the idea that markets regulate themselves. However, the crisis has shown the model’s dangers and unsustainability. What is more, even before the crisis there were signs of a need to strengthen global economic rules so that the interaction of a highly internationalised economy with regulations that are particularly national, segmented and unconnected would not yield adverse results. In the wake of the crisis, improving international economic regulation has simply become critica