International Lawyers Worldwide Call For Strengthening of Inspection Panel

 

January 9, 1998

Over one hundred and sixty lawyers from forty countries sent a strong message to World Bank President James Wolfensohn, calling for the Bank to protect the integrity and independence of the World Bank Inspection Panel. 

The letter highlighted the importance of the Inspection Panel from an international law and international development standpoint. While it applauded the Bank for creating the Inspection Panel, it cited three reasons why maintaining the integrity of the Panel was so important: i) because the Panel recognizes that international organizations have a legally significant relationship with those non-state actors directly affected by its actions, for which the international organizations should be directly accountable to the non-state actors, ii) because the Panel's findings and reports can help establish rules and principles to govern the Bank's internal rule-making and enforcing procedures and the rights and responsibilities of international civil servants, and iii) because the Panel has the capacity to influence substantive areas of international law (e.g., a Panel review of the Bank's compliance with its procedures on involuntary resettlement and indigenous peoples has the potential to affect the international law concerning those people).

The purpose of the letter was to urge President Wolfensohn to recognize and advocate for the independence and integrity of the Inspection Panel in the upcoming Board review. While the Panel structure and process has remained largely untouched thus far, several proposals to be presented at the Board review suggest that this may not be the case in the near future.