Law Commons^™

Multilateral Development Banks, Their Member States And Public Accountability: A Proposal, Daniel D. Bradlow

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

More than 25 years ago the multilateral development banks (MDBs) began establishing independent accountability mechanisms (IAMs), such as the World Bank’s Inspection Panel, to address concerns about MDB accountability to those communities and groups who were harmed by their decisions and actions. This essay argues that these mechanisms need updating. In the interests of promoting new and creative thinking about these mechanisms, it makes an ambitious two-part proposal designed to improve the efficacy of the IAMs, while also respecting the sovereignty of their member states and protecting an appropriate level of immunity for the MDBs. First, the MDBs should jointly …

Using A Shield As A Sword: Are International Organizations Abusing Their Immunity?, Daniel D. Bradlow

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

The starting point for this paper is that IOs are as subjects of international law. Since IOs do not control territory or a population and so always operate within the jurisdiction of one of their member states, they are vulnerable to interference by their member states. In order to mitigate this risk, IOs have been granted qualified immunity, usually referred to as functional immunity, from the jurisdiction of their member states. For most of the twentieth century, this grant of functional immunity made sense for two reasons.

First, the founding states envisaged that IOs would have limited capacity to act …

Private Complainants And International Organizations: A Comparative Study Of The Independent Inspection Mechanisms In International Financial Institutions, Daniel D. Bradlow

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This paper is a comparative study of the independent inspection mechanisms in international financial institutions. These mechanisms, which are an important development in the accountability of international organizations, allow private complainants who believe that they have been harmed or threatened with harm by the failure of these institutions to act in accordance with their own operational rules and procedures to have their complaints investigated by an independent body.

The paper is divided into three parts. In the first part I discuss the structure, functions and procedures of the World Bank's Inspection Panel, the International Finance Corporation's Compliance Advisor Ombudsman, the …

Development Decision Making And The Content Of International Development Law, Daniel D. Bradlow

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

International development law deals with the rights and duties of states and other actors in the development process. As the consensus view of the development process disintegrated during the 1970s and 1980s, the agreement on the content of international development law also began to break down. Today there are two competing idealized views of development. The first, the traditional view, maintains that development is about economic growth, which can be distinguished from other social, cultural, environmental, and political development issues in society. The second, the modern view, maintains that development is an integrated process of change involving intertwined economic, social, …

The World Bank, The Imf, And Human Rights, Daniel D. Bradlow

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This paper explores the type of human rights obligations of the World Bank and the IMF. It argues that their human rights obligations can be divided into two sets of issues. First is operational issues, which relate to both the promotion and protection of human rights. Second is institutional issues, which deal with the internal rules and procedures of the World Bank and the IMF. The paper concludes that these organizations need to develop a coherent and explicit human rights policy.