Human rights agreements, both in terms of scope and regional coverage,
continue to be more and more comprehensive.
In international trade, there have been efforts to complement multilateral
solutions to liberate markets, among other things, through extensive regional
and bilateral agreements. The wide-ranging regional arrangements have also
been justified through geopolitics. The international monetary system, with
the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank as its core, managed
to remain viable even in the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008.
Nonetheless, the need for stronger global cooperation as well as more robust
supervision and crisis management has been recognised.
The primary security structures in Europe include the European Union as a
comprehensive security policy actor; NATO, which sees to the collective defence
of its member states; and the OSCE, a cooperative security organisation. The
Council of Europe has a role within Europe’s shared value base.
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