The fundamental recognition in this book is that the issue of what international legal principles are applicable to the operations of the IFIs is an important topic that would benefit from more rigorous study. Twelve deeply committed contributors - whose work spans the academic, policy, and activist spectrum - suggest that a better understanding of these legal issues could help both the organizations and their Member States structure their transactions in ways that are more compatible with their developmental objectives and their international responsibilities.

This handbook provides the reader with a thorough history of banking law and illustrates how today's system of financial regulation is unlike anything else in the world. New and experienced lawyers representing banks need to understand a bank's specific structure, the importance of capital, and the new language that has formed. A reference list is included with definitions on current "Bank Speak."

Women, Business and the Law 2021 is the seventh in a series of annual studies measuring the laws and regulations that affect women’s economic opportunity in 190 economies. The project presents eight indicators structured around women’s interactions with the law as they move through their lives and careers: Mobility, Workplace, Pay, Marriage, Parenthood, Entrepreneurship, Assets, and Pension. This year’s report updates all indicators as of October 1, 2020 and builds evidence of the links between legal gender equality and women’s economic inclusion. By examining the economic decisions women make throughout their working lives, as well as the pace of reform over the past 50 years, Women, Business and the Law 2021 makes an important contribution to research and policy discussions about the state of women’s economic empowerment. Prepared during a global pandemic that threatens progress toward gender equality, this edition also includes important findings on government responses to COVID-19 and pilot research related to childcare and women’s access to justice.

This book focuses on the legal challenges and opportunities for International Financial Institutions in the post-crisis world. It includes contributions from academics, practitioners and Bank staff. The contributions cover a broad array of issues, included governance reform and constitutional framework of IFIs, privileges and immunities, responsibility of international organizations, issues related to fragile and conflict-affected states, climate finance, and the recent financial crisis. The book is organized in three main areas, namely (i) Law of International Organizations: Issues Confronting IFIs; (ii) Legal Obligations and Institutions of Developing Countries: Rethinking Approaches of IFIs; and (iii) International Finance and the Challenges of Regulatory Governance.

The World Bank's Lawyers provides an original socio-legal account of the evolving institutional life of international law. Informed by oral archives, months of participant observation, interviews, legal memoranda, and documents obtained through freedom-of-information requests, it tells a previously untold story of the World Bank's legal department between 1983 and 2016. This is a story of people and the beliefs they have, the influence they seek, and the tools they employ. It is an account of the practices they cling to and how these practices gain traction, or how they fail to do so, in an international bureaucracy. Inspired by actor-network theory, relational sociologies of association, and performativity theory, this ethnographic exploration multiplies the matters of concern in our study of international law (and lawyering): the human and non-human, material and semantic, visible and evasive actants that tie together the fragile fabric of legality. In tracing these threads, this book signals important changes in the conceptual repertoire and materiality of international legal practice, as liberal ideals were gradually displaced by managerial modes of evaluation. It reveals a world teeming with life—a space where professional postures and prototypes, aesthetic styles, and technical routines are woven together in law's shifting mode of existence. This history of international law as a contingent cultural technique enriches our understanding of the discipline's disenchantment and the displacement of its traditional tropes by unexpected and unruly actors. It thereby inspires new ways of critical thinking about international law's political pathways, promises, and pathologies, as its language is inscribed in ever-evolving rationalities of rule.

Voice, social contract, and accountability are discussed from the point of view of the function of law, justice, judicial systems and related areas from human rights to government policy, urban development, resource management, gender, social rights, economic reforms, governance, sustainable development and anti-corruption.

Sustainable poverty reduction and equitable economic development rest on the firm foundation of the rule of law. On the domestic front, countries must engage in legal reform in order to maximize the benefits of globalization, increase efficiency in business transactions, improve the way governments deliver essential services, and facilitate access to an effective justice system. Internationally, new rules are needed to face global threats such as money laundering, destabilizing capital movements, communicable diseases, and attacks on the environment. The first volume of The World Bank Legal Review: Law and Justice for Development is the result of the World Bank’s unique experience with legal and judicial innovations and research around the world. It will be of interest to policy makers, attorneys, international development professionals, and anyone interested in the role of law and justice in the multi-faceted struggle to relieve poverty and improve living standards in developing countries.