ABSTRACT
Financial stability is a global public good. But financial regulation is a matter for national jurisdictions. Since the deregulation of financial markets in the 1970s there has been a persistent tension between liberalisation and regulation. Successive crises have resulted in the steady growth of international regulatory structures – embodied most clearly in the various Basel Accords and the principles and codes that flow from them. But principles and codes are still made effective through their incorporation into national legal mechanisms. An important exception in this respect is the European Union where Directives are an important component (though not the totality) of the regulatory activities of nation states.
