102
The World Bank Legal Review
effect on systems and societies,6 they are the target of the Bank’s sanctions system. This chapter considers the Bank’s recent commitment to opening up its sanctions regime and to making that system more transparent and accountable, highlighting the particularly innovative manner in which the Bank has opened up its system. The desired end of this opening up is a sanctions regime that inspires confidence through the witnessing of the robust deliberative process that underlies it, the promotion of good governance at large, and an increase in stakeholder confidence. Opening up the process both encourages contractors to participate in Bank-financed projects and also garners further support for the fight against poverty by profiting those who play by the rules. The result is a system with significant due process protections that empowers stakeholders at all levels. This chapter is divided into four parts:
• F irst, this chapter offers an introduction to the nature of the Bank’s sanctions regime, highlighting the particular challenges that it faces.7
• S econd, it presents an outline of the development of the sanctions regime, focusing on the system’s rapid progression since its foundation in 1996. • Third, it addresses the most recent changes to the system.
• F ourth, it examines how this progression is in accord with the Bank’s mission of establishing law and justice as developmental ends in and of themselves, with a special emphasis on transparency and accountability for the sake of improving both governance and stakeholder ownership and empowerment.
The chapter concludes with remarks on the relationship between law and development and what that relationship means for the Bank as it seeks to empower those for whom it works as well as to give them a sense of confidence in the Bank and the Bank’s systems as a whole.
Introduction to the Bank’s Sanctions Regime Like other international financial institutions,8 the World Bank has traditionally considered its decisions to exclude an entity or individual from work-of-mind-for-public-private-sectors/; David Chaikin & J. C. Sharman, Corruption and Money Laundering: A Symbiotic Relationship (Palgrave Series on Asian Governance 2009); Dayanath Jayasuriya, Anti-Money Laundering Efforts, Stock Market Operations and Good Governance, 1 Qualitative Research in Financial Markets 46–58 (2009).
6 See id. See also James D. Wolfensohn, People and Development: Address to the Board of Governors at the Annual Meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, in Voice for the World’s Poor: Selected Speeches and Writings of World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn, 1995–2005 50 (World Bank 2005). 7 For a detailed discussion of the historical system’s evolution, see Leroy & Fariello, supra note 3.
8 Consider, for instance, the other multilateral development banks (MDBs), discussed further on. See infra note 39. The same is true for many other international organizations, such as the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.