"In June this year, the IMF published a review of its lending framework, which included the staff’s proposal to unwind the systemic waiver on exceptional access. This review was accompanied by a proposal on reprofiling future debt treatments where sustainability is uncertain. The IMF’s release of a paper on improvements to collective action clauses (CACs) and aggregation at this year’s Fall Meetings were a useful step forward and complementary to other proposals, such as the Sovereign Debt Forum, sovereign CoCos [contingent convertible bonds], and possible arbitration frameworks.

These developments are offset, however, by the lack of movement on sovereign debt issues at the G20, the continued delay by the US Congress in ratifying the IMF’s quota reforms, and the possible fragmentation of the international system occasioned by the still nascent BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) and Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA)."

"Decent progress continues under Basel III and the FSB, although with delays. The G20 remains reasonably focused on these issues and is supportive of this work. This is one of the brighter spots in global economic governance.

Greater concerns persist in implementation at the regional and national levels, where US banks failed their “living will” test, and cleaning of European bank balance sheets remains significantly delayed."

"The Bali 9th WTO Ministerial and the resulting “Bali Package” provided a good sign that the multilateral trade negotiation system can still produce agreement on further liberalization of international trade. The WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism also still represents the gold standard for resolving disagreements on trade.

That said, creative ways must be pursued to integrate mega regional, plurilateral, and bilateral negotiations into WTO processes, which is entirely possibly under existing WTO provisions. Moreover, the Doha Round needs to be streamlined and focused on a few issues: at present it is too sprawling to anticipate that it can be completed as is. Finally, the WTO should be reformed to provide for majoritarian decision making on some issues."

"Climate change negotiations need to be moved out of the UN’s fully comprehensive processes and moved to a venue with fewer participants such as the G20. G20 countries account for over 80 percent of global economic output and similar proportions of greenhouse emissions. The UNFCCC process is not working: it’s time to try an alternative, more streamlined approach with the key countries at the table."