International Financial Regulation and Offshore Financial Centers : the Rise of Soft Law and the Dichotomy Between the Anglo-Saxon Vision and the Continental European Approach.

Summary How does the absence of common economic interests between OECD member countries weaken the new international legislation based on Soft Law to fight against the financial and tax opacity of offshore financial centers? Tax optimization consists in using legal rules to legally reduce one's tax burden. But the border between tax optimization and tax evasion is tenuous, not to say permeable. More and more, the notions of tax optimization and tax evasion are becoming one and the same, as the rules of law are easily circumvented and their limits easily crossed. This phenomenon is particularly evident in the area of international taxation. The problematic of this thesis highlights the difficulties of Soft Law to regulate offshore financial centers, as the absence of common (economic) interests seems to be obvious between Anglo-Saxon countries and continental Europe on this issue. Yet common interest (whether economic, cultural, security or environmental) is the keystone of success for legislation based on Soft Law at the international level. The common interest seems to be non-existent or even inaccessible in the fight against tax optimization, since it is mainly aimed at protecting the social model of the welfare state in continental European countries. This is a major dichotomy at a time when Anglo-Saxon countries are increasingly moving away from it.