The World Bank Group, the Imf and Human Rights ― A Contextualised Way Forward

Includes Guiding Principles on the World Bank Group, the International Monetary Fund and Human Rights The World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund are under substantial pressure to accept more accountability under international human rights law. This publication sets out the standards by which these international financial institutions are bound under international human rights law as it currently stands. Human rights law is 'living law' and has changed over time, as have international financial institutions, despite their sometimes static approach to their own mandates. However, the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund are both starting to recognize more and more the relevance of human rights to the fulfilment of their respective mandates, even if they still maintain, be it to different degrees, that international human rights law is only partly applicable to them. This publication argues that this position is no longer tenable and that human rights law does in fact apply to both international financial institutions. About the author Willem van Genugten is Professor of International Law at Tilburg University, the Netherlands, and at the North-West University in South Africa (extra-ordinary chair). This publication results from a project funded by the European Science Foundation as part of the research network programme 'Beyond Territoriality: Globalisation and Transnational Human Rights Obligations (GLOTHRO)', which ran from 2010 to 2014.