Research groups

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS or Committee) represents at the international level the most important source of standards and rules in the field of banking and financial regulation (Basel rules); especially, but not exclusively, with regard to financial intermediaries’ capital requirements. Its main objective is to enhance global financial stability. This research project will address three distinct but correlated aspects of the Committee. The first aspect concerns the legal nature of the rules it adopts. The second relates to the legitimacy of the Basel Committee as “the primary global standard-setter” (Article 1, BCBS Charter) and of its rules. The third aspect concerns the regulatory strategy adopted by the Committee in order to pursue its objectives, in other words, it addresses the effectiveness of the regulatory framework. It is believed that these issues deserve further investigation. The project will address these aspects, by looking for useful analytical tools in distinct but complementary analytical frameworks, such as international law, global administrative law, economic law and financial economics. The goal is to find the most appropriate analytical and regulatory instruments to undertake the intended assessments and support the necessary policy and legal changes. The assumption is that each of the mentioned analytical framework can prove to be the most suitable to address some of the issues compared to the others.