Abstract
The global financial system may be seen as an arena within which global governance is regularly contested. This chapter examines one particular aspect of global finance, offshore finance, and its global level regulation, and considers small island tax havens and their resistance to forms of global governance. Over the last 40 years many small island economies (SIEs) — defined as having under 1.5 million populations (Commonwealth Secretariat, 1997) — have come to host offshore finance centres (OFCs). OFCs are located around the European periphery (for example, the Channel Islands, Isle of Man, Malta, Cyprus); in the Caribbean (Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands (BVI), The Bahamas); the Pacific (Vanuatu, Cook Islands) and Indian Ocean (Mauritius, Seychelles). Many SIEs have become highly dependent upon hosting OFC activities with extreme examples such as the British Channel Island of Jersey having over 90 per cent of its government revenues from such activities, and the OFC directly employs up to 20 per cent of the local labour force.1
Published Version
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