The Australian economy performed surprisingly strongly throughout most of the five-year period under consideration. The performance was surprising, that is, given the troubles – concentrated in the years 1997–99 – that afflicted most East Asian economies, which together account for more than half of Australia’s exports. By the end of the five-year period, however, the triumphalism that had accompanied Australian official reaction to the Asian economic crisis began to look premature. In 1999–2000, the government had to apply the brakes (in the form of higher interest rates) to the economy largely because of external constraints: a worsening current account deficit and a depreciating currency. The economy was showing all-too-familiar signs of the stop–go pattern that had choked off growth in earlier periods. Fears were mounting that the economic growth that had occurred throughout the period – the country’s longest boom since the 1960s – was drawing to an end.

An extraordinary development occurred in the Australian economy in the last quarter of 2008: for the first time since the first half of 1991, gross domestic product (GDP) declined. But even more extraordinarily – and despite the then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s assertion that ‘the worst global economic recession in 75 years means it is inevitable that Australia too will be dragged into recession’ – data for the first quarter of 2009 showed that the economy had resumed growth. Among the countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Australia alone avoided recession as conventionally defined (two consecutive quarters of negative growth in GDP).

This chapter sets out the challenges and controversies in public export financing in the EU. It puts forward a statement of the problem concerning the inadequacy of the international rule book in regulating Export Credit Agencies (ECAs) with a specific focus on non-transparency. The chapter then sets out what is known about the operation of ECAs internationally and in the EU, before highlighting what is unknown about both the market and the activities of ECAs. The chapter concludes with a call for greater data transparency to underpin international cooperation efforts to develop a more inclusive and sustainable legal framework to prevent a race to the bottom in the provision of subsidies in the form of public export finance and to promote the Sustainable Development Goals through the work of ECAs.

This chapter surveys the rapid growth of globe-spanning organizations and institutions over the past 120 years – from the League of Nations to the UN to today’s International Criminal Court and European Union. Spurred by the world wars, economic crises, and environmental disasters of the twentieth century, humanity has already come much farther than most people realize in building innovative instruments of global concertation and crisis management. Therefore, the pathways of constructive change that lie ahead of us can best be understood as continuations and extensions of the remarkable gains already achieved. Four institutions – OECD, UN, NATO, and EU – exemplify distinct levels of rising integration across national boundaries. Institutions such as International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs) have offered powerful new pathways for citizens’ concerted action beyond borders. The recently-adopted UN doctrine of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) reflects a newfound legitimacy of cross-border ethical obligations and proactive interventions to halt large-scale humanitarian disasters.

This chapter sheds light on the international organisations that have been active in proliferating leniency programmes. This contribution includes the efforts of the OECD, ICN, UNCTAD and ASEAN. For each of these organisations, the chapter argues that they have a tendency to look for the common elements among existing leniency programmes and present them as an international guideline or best practice. When the existing leniency programmes diverge, the international guideline or best practice is to offer options. By not further clarifying these options, the chapter holds, the international organisations do no more than summarise local practices and pull them outside of their context. Due to this practice, convergence is unlikely to happen because, when the international guidelines or best practices are consulted, there will be an automatic reflex to also consult existing local practices and the existing literature regarding those practices.

Algorithmic transparency is the basis of machine accountability and the cornerstone of policy frameworks that regulate the use of artificial intelligence techniques. The goal of algorithmic transparency is to ensure accuracy and fairness in decisions concerning individuals.AI techniques replicate bias, and as these techniques become more complex, bias becomes more difficult to detect. But the principle of algorithmic transparency remains important across a wide range of sectors. Credit determinations, employment assessments, educational tracking, as well as decisions about government benefits, border crossings, communications surveillance and even inspections in sports stadiums increasingly rely on black box techniques that produce results that are unaccountable, opaque, and often unfair. Even the organizations that rely on these methods often do not fully understand their impact or their weaknesses.

This chapter discusses the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises as voluntary standards for business and human rights. Both standards have received significant scholarly attention. Although both initiatives differ with regard to some dimensions (e.g., in terms of their scope), they also share a number of similarities (e.g., their voluntary and principle-based nature and their lack of monitoring). It is therefore appropriate to discuss both initiatives and to also compare them with each other (whenever possible and feasible). The discussion in this chapter proceeds as follows. The next section discusses the theoretical background by emphasizing the rise of voluntary standards related to corporate sustainability and responsibility. The following two sections provide a more practical discussion. Section three and four take an in-depth look at the UNGC and the OECD Guidelines and discuss (a) the basic idea underlying both initiatives, (b) their link to the business and human rights agenda, and (c) their enforcement mechanisms. The discussion of both standards shows one important similarity: the lack of a robust system to implement and enforce the promoted principles.

In the third chapter, some data are provided to explain the effects produced by the individual national financing systems, in terms of overall healthcare expenditure and insurance coverage of the population. The data reported confirm – both from a comparative and a diachronic perspective – that healthcare expenditure typically grows faster than GDP. The data concerning the insurance coverage of the population shows that many OECD countries do not provide healthcare coverage to the entire population. Considering all OECD countries, the uninsured total almost forty-nine million, corresponding to 3.7 percent of the population. Within EU countries, there are more than seven million uninsured (or 1.4 percent of EU residents).

Having developed a suitable normative approach, this chapter considers how best to achieve this, in light of current international law. A variety of legal modalities (treaty or soft law), fora (e.g. existing or standalone forum) and drafting approaches (multi-stakeholder or expert-led) are considered. An international expert-led soft law approach, outside the auspices of any existing international body, is recommended in the first instance, noting that, in due course, a more permanent forum may be warranted and that, indeed, binding treaty approaches may also be contemplated in the longer term. It is finally considered whether such an approach would remain consistent with existing international law, notably international intellectual property law. It is concluded that the proposed approach would be fully consistent with existing international law.

This chapter examines the reasons for, and policy behind, the programme of work that has developed a new international tax framework. In developing two "pillars", the OECD Secretariat and, more latterly, the Inclusive Framework, with the proposals in Pillar One, have broken new ground in proposing new taxing rights without the requirement of physical presence in the source or market jurisdiction. These profit allocation rules radically depart from the existing international tax framework. In addition there are other proposals that use formulaic calculations, residual profit split methodology and elements of formulary apportionment, allocating profits to the marketplace jurisdiction, ignoring the single entity concept, and departing from the arm's-length principle. In respect of Pillar Two, the proposalto prevent profit shifting is equally controversial. The proposals under Pillar Two contemplate a minimum level of tax paid on all internationally operating businesses. These proposals confront the international tax framework norm in the areas of transfer pricing, the use of intellectual property, residence taxation and, in particular, tax competition.

This chapter examines the reasons for, and policy behind, the programme of work that has developed a new international tax framework. In developing two "pillars", the OECD Secretariat and, more latterly, the Inclusive Framework, with the proposals in Pillar One, have broken new ground in proposing new taxing rights without the requirement of physical presence in the source or market jurisdiction. These profit allocation rules radically depart from the existing international tax framework. In addition there are other proposals that use formulaic calculations, residual profit split methodology and elements of formulary apportionment, allocating profits to the marketplace jurisdiction, ignoring the single entity concept, and departing from the arm's-length principle. In respect of Pillar Two, the proposalto prevent profit shifting is equally controversial. The proposals under Pillar Two contemplate a minimum level of tax paid on all internationally operating businesses. These proposals confront the international tax framework norm in the areas of transfer pricing, the use of intellectual property, residence taxation and, in particular, tax competition.

The chapter compares how the G20, the OECD and the IMF addressed fossil fuel subsidies and finds that while the three institutions agreed on the importance of reform of fossil fuel subsidies due to their environmental and economic consequences, they also differed in how they addressed these subsidies. Most notably, the IMF adopted a radical definition of fossil fuel subsidies based on the notion of corrective taxes, which stood out against the more established definition of the OECD. The chapter demonstrates that economisation may lead to diverging framings of the issue in economic terms. Subsequently, the chapter outlines how this divergence was driven by the differences in worldview, policy entrepreneurship and the degree of autonomy of the IO bureaucracy from principals. Yet, the similarities between their worldviews (they agreed on a range of fundamental issues), institutional interaction and overlapping memberships pulled in the direction of convergence between the institutions. Finally, there is a discussion on the consequences of this divergence at the international and domestic levels, while the convergence between the institutions was important for the attention to the issue and the norm of fossil fuel subsidy reform.

This chapter describes the history and track record regarding environmental issues and institutional worldview of respectively the IMF, the G20 and the OECD. Following the 2008–2009 financial crisis the G20 became the global forum for the coordination of economic policy, and the emphasis on economic objectives is visible in its prioritisation of issues and their economic impact. One of the most powerful international institutions, the IMF has a strong track record when it comes to influencing state policy, but has traditionally not paid much attention to environmental protection. Finally, the OECD promotes policies improving the economic and social well-being of people, and since the 1970s it has influenced environmental policy on the global level and within the OECD countries.

This chapter summarises the main findings of the book: international economic institutions address climate issues through economisation, yet there are differences in how exactly this economisation defines the issue at hand, differences mainly shaped by the institutional worldview of the institution and to lesser degrees by the relationship with member states. The differences were mitigated by the interaction between the institutions. The institutions were more influential regarding fossil fuel subsidies than regarding climate finance. This is due to fossil fuel subsidy reform resonating more with domestic actors than climate finance due to its positive fiscal impact (unlike climate finance that constitutes expenditure) and closer fit with neoclassical economics. These findings are discussed in the wider perspective of economic institutions and climate politics, arguing that economisation does not lead to a paradigm shift away from established practices of environmental politics. Furthermore, the economisation of climate finance and fossil fuel subsidy reform does not necessarily entail an overarching paradigm shift within the institutions, which continue with unsustainable practices such as political and economic support to fossil fuel production and consumption.

The OECD has a long institutional history of defining and providing knowledge about fossil fuel subsidies. While the G20 commitment to reform fossil fuel subsidies lifted OECD efforts to address fossil fuel subsidies to a new level, the institutional worldview of the OECD bureaucracy (influenced by the experience of addressing other kinds of subsidies) shaped how it was addressed. The OECD has been important in providing ideas, knowledge and possibilities for learning about fossil fuel subsidies among states, and influenced how the G20 and other international institutions addressed fossil fuel subsidies.