http://iorj.hse.ru en-us Copyright 2021 Fri, 02 Jul 2021 14:08:11 +0300 https://iorj.hse.ru/en/2021-16-2/495504246.html In 2020, the world community, states and citizens faced the serious global challenge. The COVID-19 pandemic jeopardizedthe implementation of the goals of sustainable development and inclusive growth, and has become a major challengefor the international cooperation and the action of global institutions. Being the main platform for cooperation among theworld’s leading economies, the G20 is often criticized for its inability to effectively withstand crises. However, as shown inthis article, the G20 managed to quickly implement a coordinated set of large-scale measures to overcome the pandemicand its consequences and become a coordinator of anti-crisis actions. The author concludes that the unique characteristicsof the G20 will allow it to remain the flagship of international efforts to ensure strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusivegrowth of the world economy, and suggests a number of priorities for the implementation of which the G20 agenda should beaimed at in the near future. https://iorj.hse.ru/en/2021-16-2/484824742.html The article investigates the future role of the G20 in a post-pandemic digital world. The transformation of the world order and global governance is interconnected with three main trends: fragmentation, digitalization and socialization. The author underlines that these trends pose challenges for states both at the national and global levels. To effectively solve the accumulated problems, the joint work of international institutions and non-state actors is required. https://iorj.hse.ru/en/2021-16-2/484824920.html How well and why have Group of 20 (G20) summits advanced Agenda 2030’s sustainable development goals (SDGs) in a synergistic way, with climate change and digitization at the core? An answer to this urgent, indeed existential, question comes from a systematic analysis of G20 summit governance of the SDGs, climate change and digitization to assess the ambition and appropriateness of advances within each pillar and the synergistic links among them. This analysis examines G20 governance of the SDGs, sustainable development, climate change and digitization across the major dimensions of performance and evaluates how performance has changed and become synergistic with the advent of the SDGs in 2015 and the shock of the COVID-19 crisis in 2020. The latter has shown the need to prevent global ecological crises and spurred the digitization of the economy, society and health. Yet, G20 summit governance has largely remained in separate silos, doing little to use the digital revolution to address climate change or reach the SDGs. This highlights the need for G20 leaders to forge links at their future summits by mainstreaming the SDGs and mobilizing the digital revolution and climate action for future health and well-being. https://iorj.hse.ru/en/2021-16-2/484825142.html This article studies the work carried out by the Group of 20 (G20) between the global crises of 2008¬–09 and 2020. Active G20 efforts to ensure financial stability and control imbalances helped to mitigate vulnerabilities to crises of the 2008–09 type. Other key achievements included the transition of several G20 members to market-determined exchange rates and the Standard for Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information as a part of the effort to combat base erosion and profit shifting. However, the G20 proved unprepared for the 2020 crisis, even though G20 leaders had noted the risks linked to infectious diseases in 2015. During the period between the crises, the G20 failed to establish an effective system for analyzing global risks. Indeed, its analysis was mainly adaptive as opposed to forward-looking; no mechanism was formed for controlling policies to manage risks. G20 members’ involvement in the analysis was inadequate, reflecting the consistent pattern of lower incentives for cooperation in the context of comparatively benign global economic conjunctures. Currently, however, the importance of managing global systemic risks is obvious and is reflected in the G20 Action Plan for supporting the global economy through the COVID-19 pandemic.This article presents recommendations for the key elements of this risk management (systematic identification of most probable/destructive vulnerabilities; development of strategies to minimize critical risks and mitigate their possible consequences; monitoring for early warning signs of the most critical vulnerabilities; organizing prompt consultations and adopting swift measures in response to the materialization of globally important risks), including mechanisms for members’ self-accountability and collaboration with international organizations. Management of systemic risks should start with resolving the challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic: improving public health response systems; promoting structural economic transformations while ensuring prompt return to full employment; and striking the right balance between economic stimulus and macroeconomic stability. https://iorj.hse.ru/en/2021-16-2/484825594.html The Covid-19 pandemic has brought to the fore significant shortcomings in global health governance. Faced with the rapid international spread of the virus, international actors unsuccessfully attempted a coordinated international response to tackle the Covid-19 outbreak and its far-reaching repercussions. The present article aims to shed light on certain flaws in the existing global health governance architecture that have thwarted both formal—the World Health Organization and the United Nations—and informal international actors—the Group of Seven and the Group of Twenty—in steering the international community through the current global health crisis. It first examines the actions taken by these actors during the Covid-19 pandemic and assesses why they fell short in steering a coordinated international response. Having identified individual states as the real culprits for the inadequate performance, the article discerns the underlying causes of individual states’ hindering of global health multilateralism. Subsequently, it underscores why global health multilateralism remains necessary in a post-Covid-19 world and which international actors should play an active role therein. To conclude, suggestions are given on how the global health governance architecture should be strengthened in a post-Covid-19 world. https://iorj.hse.ru/en/2021-16-2/484825839.html Over the past decade, international tax governance has evolved with bewildering speed in response to the challenges of digitalization and widespread corporate tax avoidance. Since the launch of the Group of 20 (G20)-Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) initiative in 2012, 135 countries and 14 international organizations have joined the BEPS Inclusive Framework, committing to implement new global standards on corporate tax, which has already been lauded as a revolution in the architecture of international tax law and policy. Even further expanding the scope of the OECD’s work on international taxation in a landmark announcement in March 2021, the U.S. administration further proposed imposing a global minimum corporate tax at a rate of 21% to be implemented through an international agreement by mid-2021. If the new OECD initiative is agreed, will the plan to implement a minimum corporate tax be fully implemented by G20 members, and if so, will it do enough to address the tax challenges of digitalization embodied in corporate tax arbitrage? Although the evidence suggests legislative and public policy compliance is likely to be high among G20 members, this article argues the minimum tax initiative is unlikely to go far enough to address deficiencies in global tax dispute resolution, which are extremely germane to the success of the proposed minimum tax. As explained in this article, U.S. leaders and global policymakers must enhance the mutual agreement procedure (MAP), a cornerstone of tax dispute resolution, given a growing body of tax litigation in investment law that threatens the implementation of BEPS 2.0. To do so, global policymakers must also reconcile the conflict of norms between tax sovereignty and investor protection contained in the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) regime. Only by addressing the conflict between the principles of tax sovereignty and investor protection can they prevent a tidal wave of investor disputes that will challenge the implementation of the minimum tax through national tax laws. https://iorj.hse.ru/en/2021-16-2/484825971.html Some scholars of global governance advocate rebalancing from global to national governance. They underline the incompatibility of global economic governance with democracies, which have the right to protect their social arrangements. They discern the fact that global (economic) governance is under heavy fire from a new vox populi, underscoring the socio-economic and cultural sources of their resentment and opposition to the liberal international order. While pointing at the timeliness of such argumentation, this article examines the fundamental problem with a sovereignty-related solution to the populist challenge. It lies in the fact that reconstituting global economic steering with a stronger emphasis on sovereignty may open the door for pursuing distinct national policies, which have blossomed during the Covid-19 pandemic and which not only overlap with populism but dismantle the benefits of international cooperation in the post-Covid-19 world. By asking about the role of the fragmented system of economic governance in inspiring populist resentment, this article creates an opportunity not only to address the challenges to global economic governance, but more specifically to reflect upon: the justification of decisive shifts toward national governance; risks which remain hidden for those discontented with economic globalization; and drafting an alternative solution, namely taking the middle way between hyper globalization and a more national policy. https://iorj.hse.ru/en/2021-16-2/484826096.html There is no doubt that global trade has contributed to rapid global economic growth over the last five decades. However, trade growth slowed after the global financial crisis; while it started to recover several years after the crisis, it has again declined since 2017 due to the trade conflict between the U.S. and China, as well as other major trade partners such as the European Union (EU), Japan and Korea. The Trump administration regarded the World Trade Organization (WTO) as acting contrary to U.S. economic interests and tried to limit its arbitration function to trade negotiations and conflicts occurring between corporations rather than states. Despite the U.S.’ attempt to weaken the WTO’s functions, the rest of the world has tried to restore the WTO’s role in free trade and multilateralism. To overcome U.S. unilateralism, many major economies have established mega free trade agreements (FTAs) such as the EU-Japan FTA, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). The 15 states in the RCEP agreed to complete it in 2020, signing without the participation of India—the third largest economy in Asia—although it had been part of the negotiations since 2011. Despite the absence of India, the RCEP will be the largest mega FTA in the world, covering over 30% of global gross domestic product (GDP), and contributing to strengthened regional economic integration and growth. This article explores whether the RCEP can function properly in the absence of India and examines why India decided not to participate. Furthermore, it investigates and analyzes how the RCEP will develop without Indian participation. Last, it discusses how to set the relationship as a competitor with the CPTPP given the overlapping memberships of participating states. https://iorj.hse.ru/en/2021-16-2/484826397.html In the last decades, the importance of trade in services in global trade flows has grown from strength to strength. This trend has stimulated the proliferation of bilateral and multilateral trade agreements aimed at ensuring equal and fair access for service providers to foreign markets. The states of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) are no exceptions to this global trend and strive to ensure free trade in services with foreign partners as a part of trade policies.This article analyzes theoretical and practical aspects of implementing the provisions on trade in services of the free trade agreement (FTA) between the EAEU and Vietnam, specifically applied to Russia and Vietnam. The results of the agreement’s implementation are instrumental in formulating the main contributions of the strategy that will increase the efficiency of future agreements on trade in services between the EAEU and foreign partners. The following strategy has already been applied to the example of service sector cooperation between Russia and Singapore. The emphasis of the study is quite universal, and the contributions of the strategy are applicable to other regional associations. https://iorj.hse.ru/en/2021-16-2/484917422.html The European Green Deal is a plan to decarbonise the EU economy by 2050, revolutionise the EU’s energy system, profoundly transform the economy and inspire efforts to combat climate change. But the plan will also have profound geopolitical repercussions. The Green Deal will affect geopolitics through its impact on the EU energy balance and global markets; on oil and gas-producing countries in the EU neighbourhood; on European energy security; and on global trade patterns, notably via the carbon border adjustment mechanism. At least some of these changes are likely to impact partner countries adversely.The EU needs to wake up to the consequences abroad of its domestic decisions. It should prepare to help manage the geopolitical aspects of the European Green Deal. Relationships with important neighbourhood countries such as Russia and Algeria, and with global players including the United States, China and Saudi Arabia, are central to this effort, which can be structured around seven actions: 1) Help neighbouring oil and gas-exporting countries manage the repercussions of the European Green Deal. The EU should engage with these countries to foster their economic diversification, including into renewable energy and green hydrogen that could in the future be exported to Europe; 2) Improve the security of critical raw materials supply and limit dependence, first and foremost on China. Essential measures include greater supply diversification, increased recycling volumes and substitution of critical materials; 3) Work with the US and other partners to establish a ‘climate club’ whose members will apply similar carbon border adjustment measures. All countries, including China, would be welcome to join if they commit to abide by the club's objectives and rules; 4) Become a global standard-setter for the energy transition, particularly in hydrogen and green bonds. Requiring compliance with strict environmental regulations as a condition to access the EU market will be strong encouragement to go green for all countries; 5) Internationalise the European Green Deal by mobilising the EU budget, the EU Recovery and Resilience Fund, and EU development policy; 6) Promote global coalitions for climate change mitigation, for example through a global coalition for the permafrost, which would fund measures to contain the permafrost thaw; 7) Promote a global platform on the new economics of climate action to share lessons learned and best practices.