Events
New World, New Rules: Collective Action Repurposed
30 September – 2 October 2021
European University Institute, Florence
This conference gathered the key findings and emerging policy directions from a series of high-level seminars that have brought together academics, policy practitioners, business and civil society over the past two years, within the framework of the Transformation of Global Governance project.
Seminar insights, keynote speech and conclusions are included in the eBook ‘New World, New Rules? Final report on the Transformation of Global Governance Project 2018-2021’ available in PDF.
Seminar on the Governance of Global Health
17 December 2020
Online
Jointly organised with: Bruegel
With the emergence of the new Coronavirus, the importance of global health and its governance has leapt to the forefront. Despite a crisis where the benefits of cooperation have never seemed clearer, collective action failed in many respects. This seminar examined the reasons for this failure, and how to rebuild given the fractured and underfunded landscape of global health governance institutions, increasingly shaped by the power of private and philanthropic organisations until now.
What lessons can be drawn and what coalitional strategies should be pursued from the Covid-19 pandemic health governance? How can states and international organisations rebuild a better international health regime?
Seminar on the Governance of Digital Networks
25-26 November 2019
Berlin, Germany
Jointly organised with: Hertie School of Governance
Digital governance evolved in an ad hoc, decentralized manner. This seminar examined the fast emergence of global digital oligopolies, actions of certain state powers giving rise to democracy and security concerns, and the increasingly vocal involvement of civil society, which all make digital governance a pressing problem.
Digital governance faces difficult questions of defining what is to be governed and how best to do so.
Seminar on the Governance of Climate Change
20-21 June 2019
Paris, France
Jointly organised with: European Climate Foundation; EUI Florence School of Regulation, Climate and Energy departments
While the threat that climate change poses to humanity has long been well understood, effective action is lacking. This seminar examined the “regime complex” governing the mitigation of climate change and its effects, with a particular focus on the Paris Agreement and its shortcomings, and what avenues exist for reinforcing or reshaping it.
Climate change is the most pressing and challenging collective action issue, but the global climate governance framework is not up to the task. The plethora of available policy tools need to be harnessed to deliver the desired result.
Seminar on the Governance of Migration
21 May 2019
Florence, Italy
Jointly organised with: EUI’s Migration Policy Centre
Migration is an extremely sensitive political topic, practically exclusively domestically governed. This seminar examined the current issues that migration governance faces, and what avenues and modalities of cooperation are available, as geopolitical, economic and environmental pressures driving international migration continue to rise.
While the peak of the migration crisis has past, migration governance remains woefully fragmentary and imperfect. Governance structures are ever more necessary, but will cooperation emerge and how?
Seminar on the Governance of Global Financial Safety Nets
1-2 April 2019
London, United Kingdom
Jointly organised with: HM Treasury; London School of Economics
Financial globalisation has increased states’ need for a safety net to prevent financial crises from spinning out of control. Since the global financial crisis, the system of safety nets has been reformed and added to, making it more diverse, but also more fragmented. This seminar examined its components, coherence, and its potential resilience.
After the Global Financial Crisis, financial stability is more important than ever. How do the various nets ensuring that safety interact at different governance levels? Where are there gaps?
Seminar ‘Taxation Governance in Global Markets: Challenges, Risks and Opportunities’
18-19 February 2019
Paris, France
Jointly organised with: OECD
Great progress has been made in tackling base erosion and profit shifting measures; but it is the underlying philosophy of taxation itself that is being redefined in debates within the OECD in order to properly capture an increasingly globalised and digitalised economy.
International taxation governance has seen significant progress despite an unconventional orchestration mandate given to the OECD. Will this forward momentum continue?
Seminar ‘The history of governance of trade and international finance’
14 November 2018
Florence, Italy
Jointly organised with: European University Institute
This seminar discussed the history of the architecture of economic challenges, starting from the 1970s, which marked a turning point in global governance. Mounting international challenges led to the establishment of new top-level institutions, an expansion of the multilateral trade regime, and a consolidation of the international financial system. This event highlighted that underlying governance norms that emerged then have held until now, but new geopolitical and geoeconomical challenges may yet upend them.
“The core job of the historian is deidealise the past.”
Seminar ‘The Governance of Competition Policy: Cooperation and Extraterritoriality’
16 October 2018
Bruxelles, Belgium
Jointly organised with: Bruegel
“It is a strange system, that shouldn’t work on paper, but does in practice. The functioning of the global competition policy system is a miracle to be preserved.”
This seminar focused on competition policies, which have the potential to affect trade, service provision and regulation beyond their territorial scope. Speakers examined how they are conducted and coordinated, so that their effectiveness can be assessed and governance further developed.
Competition policy sits uncomfortably between its national basis and its extraterritorial effects. Voluntary cooperation and coordination has proved successful until now, but will it last?
Seminar ‘Governance of international banking’
12-13 September 2018
Milan, Italy
Jointly organised with: Bocconi University; Florence School of Banking and Finance
“Having uniform regulation without uniform supervision is like having a lighthouse and not switching it on.”
This closed-doors seminar examined what regulatory paths the banking sector took after the global financial crisis, and what instruments have been put in place to prevent and manage future crises. It also took a look at what challenges technological innovations, cryptocurrencies in particular, pose to banking governance.
Progress has been made in devising and tightening banking regulation since the financial crisis, but is it enough to avert a new one?
Banking regulation follows a fairly effective non-mandatory, coordinate-and-review model, but is it resilient enough against disruption?
Workshop ‘The Governance of International Trade: Reshape or Demise?’
19-20 June 2018
Florence, Italy
Jointly organised with: Global Governance Programme, EUI
Focusing on the governance of international trade, the first sectoral seminar was organised in conjunction with the Global Economics research team of the EUI’s Global Governance Programme. Conclusions drawn were that the WTO suffers from near-paralysis due to it no longer reflecting current geopolitical and business situations. Bypasses have been crafted to further regional integration and deepen policy coordination, but the architecture of trade governance is at serious risk of collapse due to a crisis of leadership and an over-burdening of its adjudication system.
Trade rules and institutions are outdated and its geopolitics have shifted. Trade is no longer just about trade. What models and principles can be drawn on to bolster trade governance?
Inaugural lecture and seminar of the Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa chair, ‘The Transformation of Global Governance’
9 April 2018
Florence, Italy
Jointly organised with: Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, EUI
The Chair Holder presented the Transformation of Global Governance Project, outlining the issues and questions animating it and sketching out the future research agenda.
Why does global governance matter? What is the current state of global governance? Where can we go from there?