Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T15:38:54.195Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - Shifting the IMF Mandate

from Part II - The IMF, Capital Flows and Controls

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 May 2023

Bryan Mercurio
Affiliation:
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Get access

Summary

In the absence of an international framework applicable to cross-border capital flows, there is little doubt that the Fund had to assert its authority over capital movements. Without the Fund, a legal lacuna would exist and financial movements would go largely unregulated. Yet, it is less certain whether the Fund ever had the formal legal authority to empower itself to act as a de facto financial authority. A strict reading of the Articles of Agreement suggests that the Fund historically had no mandate over capital movements. Yet, several decades ago the Fund began slowly but steadily appropriating and assuming authority over capital movements. This chapter explores the legal instruments used by the Fund to organise the shift and expansion of its mandate. The chapter makes two major points. First, while the Fund grounded its mandate expansion on the text and wording of the Articles of Agreement, it relied on an Article IV byroad to interpret its constitutive instrument to escape the historical distinction between capital movements and current international transactions. Second, the Fund’s Institutional View of 2012 was not a radical break from tradition but merely a formalization and crystallisation of the ideas and direction it has pursued since 2008.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Shifting the IMF Mandate
  • Bryan Mercurio, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
  • Book: Capital Controls and International Economic Law
  • Online publication: 18 May 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009042215.007
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Shifting the IMF Mandate
  • Bryan Mercurio, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
  • Book: Capital Controls and International Economic Law
  • Online publication: 18 May 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009042215.007
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Shifting the IMF Mandate
  • Bryan Mercurio, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
  • Book: Capital Controls and International Economic Law
  • Online publication: 18 May 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009042215.007
Available formats
×