Dollar dominance, de-dollarization, and international law

Francisco J Quintana

Journal of International Economic Law, 2025, vol. 28, issue 3, 359-381

Abstract: Recent proposals to seize Russian Central Bank assets expose how little international lawyers have engaged with the intensifying competition over global monetary governance. This article addresses this gap by reframing the global dominance of the US dollar and emerging de-dollarization efforts as competing legal institutions. First, the article reconstructs dollar dominance as a network of legal norms, practices, and institutional arrangements that sustain unequal global relations. Secondly, it shows how BRICS states are developing legal tools and institutional innovations to reduce their exposure to the US dollar. These initiatives will not topple dollar dominance anytime soon, but they already illustrate a shift: major emerging economies are using law and infrastructure to claim greater economic autonomy. This unfolding contest compels international lawyers to confront how changing geographies, technologies, and distributive claims could reshape core norms and institutions of international law and global governance.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jiel/jgaf032 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:jieclw:v:28:y:2025:i:3:p:359-381.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of International Economic Law is currently edited by Kathleen Claussen, Sergio Puig and Michael Waibel

More articles in Journal of International Economic Law from Oxford University Press Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().