Accountability or Appeasement? An Exploration of the World Bank's Inspection Panel
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- The World Bank’s Inspection Panel was the first accountability mechanism of its kind at an international finance institution. The Panel was created in response to civil society protests regarding the human rights violations that were increasing in frequency because of Bank-funded projects. Since its inception in 1993, the Inspection Panel has received over 160 complaints citing concerns about project implementation and design. The central question of this thesis surfaced when it became apparent that, despite the Panel’s promises to address the concerns of communities adversely affected by Bank-funded projects, the Panel has taken decisive action in a concerningly low number of cases. There is a clear gap between the Panel’s mandate and the actions that it took. But why? As such, the question emerged: What determines how cases move through the World Bank’s Accountability Mechanism complaint process? Through a combination of case studies and Panel data, supplemented by interviews with Accountability Counsel staff members and a former Inspection Panel member, I argue that both time and civil society organization (CSO) involvement were significant factors that influenced a complaint’s mobility through the Panel’s process. The thesis found that, while these factors could play a role, ultimately, it boils down to the whims of the World Bank’s Management, who are heavily involved in the Inspection Panel process despite the Panel’s design as an independent body. Management’s overt involvement in the Panel’s process severely undermines the ability of the Panel to practice its mandate and blurs the necessary lines of separation between the Panel and the Bank. This major finding raises concerns on the practice of accountability at these institutions and highlights the need for the Panel, and the Bank, to amend the ways in which communities can seek redress within its walls. Evidently, the Inspection Panel still has a long way to go in the way of meeting its original mandate.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date created | [ca. March 2022 - May 10, 2023] |
| Publication date | July 19, 2023 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Crooks, Gabrielle |
|---|---|
| Advisor | Stedman, Stephen |
Subjects
| Subject | World Bank |
|---|---|
| Subject | World Bank. Inspection Panel |
| Subject | Accountability |
| Subject | Responsibility |
| Subject | Financial institutions, International |
| Genre | Text |
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
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- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY).
Preferred citation
- Preferred citation
- Crooks, G. (2023). Accountability or Appeasement? An Exploration of the World Bank's Inspection Panel. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at https://purl.stanford.edu/rn466vq7400. https://doi.org/10.25740/rn466vq7400.
Collection
Stanford University, Fisher Family Honors Program in Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. (CDDRL)
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- Contact
- crooks.gabrielle@gmail.com
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