The United Stales and the Politicization of the World Bank: Issues of International Law and Policy. By Bartram S. Brown. [London: Kegan Paul International. 1992. 295 pp. ISBN 0-7103-0424-4. £45]
Various human rights are widely recognized in codified and customary international law. These human rights promise all human beings protection against specific severe harms that might be inflicted on them domestically or by foreigners. Yet international law also establishes and maintains institutional structures that greatly contribute to violations of these human rights: fundamental components of international law systematically obstruct the aspirations of poor populations for democratic self-government, civil rights, and minimal economic sufficiency. And central international organizations, such as the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank, are designed so that they systematically contribute to the persistence of severe poverty.
While judicial bodies have proliferated in the last fifty years in a process that has been deemed “quasi-anarchic” (Guillaume, G., 2000) creating a risk of inconsistency in their decisions which would endanger the international law system, quasi-judicial bodies such as Multilateral Development Banks' accountability mechanisms are not spared by this legal phenomenon. They have diverse proceedings and jurisdictions, operate with different sets of environmental and social safeguards, but may confront similar factual scenarios, especially in the case of co-financing.
The recent Kenya Electricity Expansion Project presented before the World Bank and the European Investment Bank’s accountability mechanisms illustrates that, through a managerial approach, potentially conflicting findings can be avoided. This paper aims to show that quasi-judicial bodies can constitute a source of inspiration for the integrated development of international law.
At its plenary session on 14 May 1970, the International Committee of the Red Cross elected Mr. Victor H. Umbricht as a new member.Mr. Umbricht was born at Untersiggenthal in the canton of Aargau in 1915. After studying at various universities he obtained a doctorate in international law. He was a member of the Tribunal of Baden and then, from 1941 to 1953, was in the Swiss diplomatic service. He subsequently became assistant director of operations at the World Bank, Washington, for Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. In 1957 he was appointed Director of the Federal Administration of Finances in Bern.
Sigrun Skogly, The Human Rights Obligations of the World Bank and the IMF, London, Cavendish Publishing, 2001, ISBN 1859416659, 240 pp., £71.50 (pb).Mac Darrow, Between Light and Shadow:The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and International Human Rights Law, Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2003, ISBN 1841133906, 376 pp., £42.00.00 (hb).Balakrishnan Rajagopal, International Law from Below: Development, Social Movements and Third World Resistance, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003, ISBN 0521016711, 360 pp., £19.99 (pb).
ABSTRACT
The large and growing number of international judicial and quasi-judicial bodies has made international procedural law an important part of public international law. This article examines how procedural rules of a certain type—provisions related to facts, evidence, and the burden of proof—have been designed in the World Bank Group Sanctions System. The main conclusion is that such rules play a central role, and that considerable efforts have been made during the last two decades to develop a well-functioning body of procedural provisions. However, the article also argues that certain parts of the system could be developed further, in order to make it as clear as possible what is expected from the different actors in the proceedings.
A managerial approach for the coherent development of sustainable development law