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...

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...

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...

Increased globalization over the last twenty years has made effective global economic governance more important than ever. This period has witnessed the rise of a number of new international governance actors, such as the Group of Twenty and the Financial Stability Board. This Article proposes a...

It is a rare privilege for an academic who has specialized in international economic institutions to get a chance to put what he researched into practice. I had this privilege when I became the first head of the South African Reserve Bank's (SARB) new International Economic Relations and Policy...

The operations of multilateral development banks (MDBs) can have both positive and negative environmental, social and human rights impacts. Since negative impacts can have profound and irreversible consequences, they should be avoided or mitigated. The MDBs also need to provide those adversely...