Overview and issues

Abstract

The last time there was reinvention of the global order anywhere near the magnitude that some argue is needed today was the aftermath of the Second World War. The immediate postwar period saw a concentration of political will and power that resulted in the creation of the United Nations system aimed at maintaining world peace, the World Bank aimed at development, the IMF for international macroeconomic financial stabilisation and the GATT for opening the world trading system. As Garnaut explains in Chapter 3, the challenges the world faces now in managing the international externalities of state action are much larger and their solution more pressing than perhaps ever before. These challenges require a new set of policy responses in which international arrangements and organisations must play a crucial role. Show more