Emerging Informal Network Structures in Global Governance Inside the Anti-Money Laundering Regime

Abstract

AbstractDuring the last decades a global governance system consisting of various decision-making arenas, shifting regulatory decisions from the domestic to the global level, has emerged. It includes informal but institutionalised transgovernmental networks, private actors such as financial institutions, hybrid private-public networks and enforcement cooperations. This essay argues that the system exhibits a democratic deficit. By analysing this claim based on the 'Anti Money Laundering Regime' (AML regime), in section two it will become clear that the deficit does not just derive from loose procedural problems such as insufficient transparency but in general from the apolitical and rather technical nature of the system itself. Section three will then proceed to analyse proposed reactions, mainly the idea of a global administrative law. However, it will not only consider the immanent critiques, but also address the problem of a functionalised world and raise and discuss the question whether the approach of 'instrumentalising' international law is the right reaction and first and foremost the future role of international law.