The exact contours of international organizations' (IO) responsibility have not yet been clearly defined. While IOs – and international financial institutions (IFIs) in particular – have in the past avoided drawing those contours in more certain terms, this position is slowly changing: IFIs...

Privatisation poses challenges to the manner in which public values, such as accessibility, affordability, reliability, safety and sustainability, can be secured. In liberal societies the state, legitimised through democratic elections (input legitimacy) and the rule of law upheld by courts...

Water is a scarce and finite resource with no substitute, and upon which the very existence of life on earth depends. The challenges facing water resources are daunting. The Millennium Development Goals aim, inter alia, at reducing by half, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable...

This article provides background on the establishment of the World Bank Inspection Panel and discusses its significance. It argues that the Panel is an important international legal development for three reasons. First, it is the first forum in which private actors can hold an international...

This paper explores the lessons to be learned from the South African debt crisis of the mid-1980s and suggests ways in which it could have been used to promote human rights changes in apartheid South Africa

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...

This paper systematically describes the public participation standards currently applied by multilateral development banks (MDBs) to the private sector and seeks to identify emerging trends and areas for further development or improvement. It begins by outlining the developing body of...

This is the introduction to an edited volume of papers on International Financial Institutions and International Law. The introduction provides an explanation of the editors motivation for undertaking this book project and an overview of the chapters in the book

This is the conclusion to the edited volume, International Financial Institutions and International Law. After a brief overview of the key points made in the volume, the authors offer some observations on the role that international law plays and should play in the functioning of international...

International financial institutions (IFIs) have a dual character. First, they are inter-governmental organizations that are created by states for a public purpose; and their authority and mandates are based on an international agreement to which all their Member States are party. As subjects of...