This Element explores the colonial foundations and imperial design of offshore finance, arguing that tax havens are not anomalies but central to global capitalism. Centering the Caribbean and Puerto Rico, it shows how colonial legality and geopolitical subordination produced zones marked by a logic of inclusive exclusion, where secrecy, corporate power, and tax injustice are normalized. Drawing on TWAIL and law and political economy, the Element introduces the concepts of colonial state of exception and the corporate citizen as key legal formations of the colonial offshore economy. It examines how secrecy, financial services, and fintech enable corporations to externalize harm and evade accountability, and how tax reforms, like the OECD's Pillar Two and the UN Tax Convention, often reproduce colonial and racialized hierarchies. The Element concludes with a call to abolish the colonial offshore economy and to uplift grassroots movements across the Caribbean that demand transparency, sovereignty, and justice.

This Element explores the colonial foundations and imperial design of offshore finance, arguing that tax havens are not anomalies but central to global capitalism. Centering the Caribbean and Puerto Rico, it shows how colonial legality and geopolitical subordination produced zones marked by a logic of inclusive exclusion, where secrecy, corporate power, and tax injustice are normalized. Drawing on TWAIL and law and political economy, the Element introduces the concepts of colonial state of exception and the corporate citizen as key legal formations of the colonial offshore economy. It examines how secrecy, financial services, and fintech enable corporations to externalize harm and evade accountability, and how tax reforms, like the OECD's Pillar Two and the UN Tax Convention, often reproduce colonial and racialized hierarchies. The Element concludes with a call to abolish the colonial offshore economy and to uplift grassroots movements across the Caribbean that demand transparency, sovereignty, and justice.

Devastating hurricanes, deteriorating infrastructure, massive public debt, and a global pandemic make up the continuous crises that plague Puerto Rico. In the last several years, this disastrous escalation has placed the archipelago more centrally on the radar of residents and politicians in the United States, as the US Congress established an oversight board with emergency powers to ensure Puerto Rico's economic survival—and its ability to repay its debt. These events should not be understood as a random string of compounding misfortune. Rather, as demonstrated by Jose Atiles in Crisis by Design, they result from the social, legal, and political structure of colonialism. Moreover, Atiles shows how administrations, through emergency powers and laws paired with the dynamics of wealth extraction, have served to sustain and exacerbate crises. He explores the role of the local government, corporations, and grassroots mobilizations. More broadly, the Puerto Rican case provides insight into the role of law and emergency powers in other global south, Caribbean, and racialized and colonized countries. In these settings, Atiles contends, colonialism is the ongoing catastrophe.

Devastating hurricanes, deteriorating infrastructure, massive public debt, and a global pandemic make up the continuous crises that plague Puerto Rico. In the last several years, this disastrous escalation has placed the archipelago more centrally on the radar of residents and politicians in the United States, as the US Congress established an oversight board with emergency powers to ensure Puerto Rico's economic survival—and its ability to repay its debt. These events should not be understood as a random string of compounding misfortune. Rather, as demonstrated by Jose Atiles in Crisis by Design, they result from the social, legal, and political structure of colonialism. Moreover, Atiles shows how administrations, through emergency powers and laws paired with the dynamics of wealth extraction, have served to sustain and exacerbate crises. He explores the role of the local government, corporations, and grassroots mobilizations. More broadly, the Puerto Rican case provides insight into the role of law and emergency powers in other global south, Caribbean, and racialized and colonized countries. In these settings, Atiles contends, colonialism is the ongoing catastrophe.

This Element explores the colonial foundations and imperial design of offshore finance, arguing that tax havens are not anomalies but central to global capitalism. Centering the Caribbean and Puerto Rico, it shows how colonial legality and geopolitical subordination produced zones marked by a logic of inclusive exclusion, where secrecy, corporate power, and tax injustice are normalized. Drawing on TWAIL and law and political economy, the Element introduces the concepts of colonial state of exception and the corporate citizen as key legal formations of the colonial offshore economy. It examines how secrecy, financial services, and fintech enable corporations to externalize harm and evade accountability, and how tax reforms, like the OECD's Pillar Two and the UN Tax Convention, often reproduce colonial and racialized hierarchies. The Element concludes with a call to abolish the colonial offshore economy and to uplift grassroots movements across the Caribbean that demand transparency, sovereignty, and justice.

This Element explores the colonial foundations and imperial design of offshore finance, arguing that tax havens are not anomalies but central to global capitalism. Centering the Caribbean and Puerto Rico, it shows how colonial legality and geopolitical subordination produced zones marked by a logic of inclusive exclusion, where secrecy, corporate power, and tax injustice are normalized. Drawing on TWAIL and law and political economy, the Element introduces the concepts of colonial state of exception and the corporate citizen as key legal formations of the colonial offshore economy. It examines how secrecy, financial services, and fintech enable corporations to externalize harm and evade accountability, and how tax reforms, like the OECD's Pillar Two and the UN Tax Convention, often reproduce colonial and racialized hierarchies. The Element concludes with a call to abolish the colonial offshore economy and to uplift grassroots movements across the Caribbean that demand transparency, sovereignty, and justice.

Devastating hurricanes, deteriorating infrastructure, massive public debt, and a global pandemic make up the continuous crises that plague Puerto Rico. In the last several years, this disastrous escalation has placed the archipelago more centrally on the radar of residents and politicians in the United States, as the US Congress established an oversight board with emergency powers to ensure Puerto Rico's economic survival—and its ability to repay its debt. These events should not be understood as a random string of compounding misfortune. Rather, as demonstrated by Jose Atiles in Crisis by Design, they result from the social, legal, and political structure of colonialism. Moreover, Atiles shows how administrations, through emergency powers and laws paired with the dynamics of wealth extraction, have served to sustain and exacerbate crises. He explores the role of the local government, corporations, and grassroots mobilizations. More broadly, the Puerto Rican case provides insight into the role of law and emergency powers in other global south, Caribbean, and racialized and colonized countries. In these settings, Atiles contends, colonialism is the ongoing catastrophe.

Devastating hurricanes, deteriorating infrastructure, massive public debt, and a global pandemic make up the continuous crises that plague Puerto Rico. In the last several years, this disastrous escalation has placed the archipelago more centrally on the radar of residents and politicians in the United States, as the US Congress established an oversight board with emergency powers to ensure Puerto Rico's economic survival—and its ability to repay its debt. These events should not be understood as a random string of compounding misfortune. Rather, as demonstrated by Jose Atiles in Crisis by Design, they result from the social, legal, and political structure of colonialism. Moreover, Atiles shows how administrations, through emergency powers and laws paired with the dynamics of wealth extraction, have served to sustain and exacerbate crises. He explores the role of the local government, corporations, and grassroots mobilizations. More broadly, the Puerto Rican case provides insight into the role of law and emergency powers in other global south, Caribbean, and racialized and colonized countries. In these settings, Atiles contends, colonialism is the ongoing catastrophe.