The 10th AIIFL Distinguished Public Lecture

Globalisation, the Global Financial Crisis, and the Reinvention of the State

Thursday, 17 November 2011
6:30 – 7:30 pm
Theatre 7, Meng Wah Complex, University of Hong Kong

Professor John Farrar
Emeritus Professor of Law
Bond University

Chair: Mr. Anthony Neoh, SC
Former Chairman of Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission and
Chairman of AIIFL Professional Advisory Board

Globalisation is a word which has been in circulation since about 1962 and is used to describe complex processes of economic and social change making things global in nature or scope. The emphasis is usually on internationalisation although sometimes distinctions are drawn between globalised localism and localised globalism. There has been a tendency in the last 20 years to think mainly of economic globalisation but social and political globalisation are also important and have deep cultural consequences. Globalisation has been linked with capitalism and imperialism in the past but the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) has thrown that into question. Early views of globalisation in the first decade after 1990 saw globalisation as reducing the significance of the nation state. Again, the GFC has cast doubt on that and we have seen the resurgence of the nation state as regulator, investor and sometimes economic saviour. At the same time there has been a need for greater international cooperation. Here then are many paradoxes. In this lecture, Professor Farrar considered each of the three concepts of globalisation, the GFC and the state and their complex interrelationship.

Professor John Farrar is a Barrister of the Supreme Courts of Queensland and ACT and High Courts of Australia and New Zealand and Emeritus Professor of Law, Bond University; formerly Professorial Fellow, University of Melbourne, Dean of Law, University of Canterbury, Bond University, and the University of Waikato Law School and Acting Vice Chancellor, Bond University. He is also Professor of Corporate Governance and Joint Director of the New Zealand Governance Centre, University of Auckland Business School since 2008 and author of a number of books and articles the most recent of which are: “Corporate Governance: Theories, Principles and Practice” 3rd edition, Oxford University Press 2008 and “Company & Securities Law in New Zealand” (General Editor and Author of chapters) Thomson Brookers Wellington 2008, and “The Global Financial Crisis and the Governance of Financial Institutions” in Australian Journal of Corporate Law (2010). He was a Visiting Professor at HKU and delivered the first AIIFL Distinguished Public Lecture in 1999.