Although financial crises have never been pleasant for people who have to live through them, they now seem to be more common and devastating than at any time in living memory. Large-scale financial crises sparked by loose lending and asset bubbles have occurred on average nearly once every three years since the 1990s – and in countries as diverse as Mexico, Thailand, and, of course most recently, the United States. Moreover, their impact has grown as ever more financial institutions from all over the world have become more central and indispensible to international capital markets. These developments have helped ensure that when financial crises occur, the global economy shrinks, companies go out of business, and countless jobs are lost, often in different countries and continents.

Perhaps, then, it is not surprising that people are now more interested than ever before in the issue of international financial market regulation. Whether it be on the pages of the New York Times, the Frankfurter Allgemeine, or Le Monde, scarcely a week has gone by since 2007 without a front page story on the machinations of the “G-20,” “IOSCO,” the “Basel Committee,” or other seemingly arcane international institutions that are crafting key regulatory policies for the world's financial markets.