?:abstract
|
-
abstract The Covid-19 crisis reinforced and consolidated a template for global monetary cooperation, aiming to keep the international financial markets functioning At the core of the monetary system, the legal design for cooperation has changed substantially: from the central role of multilateral organizations responsible for organizing collective actions (such as the International Monetary Fund - IMF), to more flexible contractual arrangements, formalized by a network of Central Bank swaps The management of the Covid-19 monetary impacts reveals a new Bretton Woods moment, organized in novel political and legal terms This article argues that Law has an explanatory and constitutive role in this substantial development The US dollar, as a global currency, is structured by a specific type of contract, the eurodollar In times of crisis, this contract requires an international lender of last resort that provides unlimited financial support to the currency’s global uses Only a financial institution organized as a central bank has the legal and economic capacity to perform this role - not a multilateral fund The hierarchical network of Central Bank swaps, with the American Central Bank (the Federal Reserve - Fed) at the top, was the legal arrangement structured to support the functioning of the global financial market and its currency par excellence, the eurodollar
|