New Bretton Woods

The credit crisis and its severe impact on world financial markets has given rise to a call for a New Bretton Woods.

Politicians, diplomats, and economists are all calling for new global financial rules.

The failures in the financial system are said to demonstrate the need for a new version of the financial rules agreed at New Hampshire’s Bretton Woods towards the end of the Second World War.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz says, “this is a global crisis and it requires a global response. Development economist Sakiko Fukuda-Parr agreed, “global solutions are needed.” And British Prime Minister Gordon Brown stated that the world, “must have a new Bretton Woods - building a new international financial architecture for the years ahead.”

New Bretton Woods aims at reforms of the international financial system, including increased transparency, and co-operation across borders.

However, New Bretton Woods will not be negotiated by an alliance united by war, it will be agreed by those same nations that couldn’t agree the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. New Bretton Woods is unlikely to have the same impact as the groundbreaking Bretton Woods agreement reached over 60 years ago.