Symposium: Emerging Powers, Global Justice and International Economic Law

This week, we have the pleasure of hosting an exciting discussion on Andreas Buser’s recent book, Emerging Powers, Global Justice and International Economic Law: Reformers of an Unjust Order? published by Springer.

From the Publisher:

The book assesses emerging powers’ influence on international economic law and analyses whether their rhetoric of reforming this ‘unjust’ order translates into concrete reforms. The questions at the heart of the book surround the extent to which Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa individually and as a bloc (BRICS) provide alternative regulatory ideas to those of ‘Western’ States and whether they are able to convert their increased power into influence on global regulation. To do so, the book investigates two broader case studies, namely, the reform of international investment agreements and WTO reform negotiations since the start of the Doha Development Round. As a general outcome, it finds that emerging powers do not radically challenge established law. ‘Third World’ rhetoric mostly does not translate into practice and rather serves to veil economic interests. Still, emerging powers provide for some alternative regulatory ideas, already leading to a diversification of international economic law. As a general rule, they tend to support norms that allow host States much policy space which could be used to protect and fulfil socio-economic human rights, especially – but not only – in the Global South.

Helmut Philipp Aust will introduce the symposium later this morning, and then throughout the week, we have fantastic posts lined up by Congyan Cai, OJ’s own Mohsen al Attar, Anna Hankings-Evans, James Nedumpara, Henrique Choer-Moraes with concluding thoughts provided by Andreas Buser himself. Please follow along and join the conversation in the comments section.

A list of the posts (and links to them) in order of publication:

Helmut Philipp Aust, An Introduction

Congyan Cai, Emerging Powers and International Economic Governance–More Promises, More Risks or Irrelevance?

Mohsen al Attar, Emerging Powers and the International Order–A Third World Critique

Anna Hankings-Evans, Andreas Buser’s “Emerging Powers, Global Justice and International Economic Law”

Henrique Choer Moraes, An Epilogue to the Rise of Emerging Powers in the 2010s–The Turn to Geoeconomics in the 2020s

James Nedumpara, Emerging Powers, Global Justice and International Economic Law

Andreas Buser, Response by the Author