ABSTRACT
Given the difficulties that competing nation-states have always had in resolving cross-border disputes, a huge framework of global governance has emerged over the past 80 or so years, displacing the locus of much of the decision-making that shapes the IB environment. The chapter begins with a review of the different categories of regional economic groups that have emerged to maximise cooperation between geographically proximate nations, with special focus placed on the different levels of integration represented by each grouping. It then moves on to study intergovernmental organisations (IGOs) - especially the institutions that came out of the 1944–1947 Bretton Woods conference, led by the World Trade Organization (WTO), a power base whose fortunes have waxed and waned in recent times. The final section analyses the global governance of the financial markets in recognition of both the tremendous power wielded by these largely unregulated cross-border entities and their impact on IB policy-making.
