All good things come to an end

Like a host of other micro-states which are predominantly tax havens and of fshore finance centres, the channel Islands have been identified by a varie ty of agencies, including the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Cr ime Prevention, the European Union and the Organization for Economic Co-ope ration and Development, as global problems. In the estimation of the OECD, they are sufficiently threatening to merit inclusion on a hit list of islan ds in the sun. What has happened to bring these obscure statelets under int ernational scrutiny?