World Bank immunity

The issue of the World Bank immunity has to be looked in light of International Legal principles on organisational immunity, rather than the rhetorical neo-Marxist outcry as to the so called 'ruthless' activities of the World Bank in third world countries. Those who are opposing this immunity are certainly forgetting that it is a fundamental principle of International Law that the specialist organisations of the United Nations

have to be given immunity from domestic jurisdiction so as to enable their activities to be performed in the most efficient manner.

The UN Charter and subsequent General Convention on Immunity and Privileges of UN Specialised Agencies require that the member states of the UN ought to make provisions in their jurisdiction to ensure certain privileges and immunities of its agencies and other subsidiary bodies.

Colloquially as World Bank is a specialised agency of the United Nations, more appropriately known as, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development or IBRD, a product of the Bretton Woods conference of 1944.

The IBRD Agreement, which is the source of the creation of World Bank, and the said General Convention stipulated that the member states are bound to give such immunities that are required as per the provisions of the agreement. If a member state wants to benefit from or use whatever service of these agencies, they have no choice but to grant immunities to these organisations. Apparently Bangladesh had taken steps, previously, to ensure that due immunity is given to World Bank and other Foreign Organisations namely ADB, by ways of presidential decrees or other means, for example, International Financial Organisation Order 1972 to ensure that it complies with the IBRD Agreement and the Convention requirement. However they did not form any prudent and thorough legislative formation so as to provide a coherent legal guideline on this issue.

Whetever the current set-up is, World Bank in fact remained immune and as a matter of International Law this immunity is not exclusively absolute and certainly subject to various legal limitations. On the international plane today, even the States and their former heads (for example, see Ex parte Pinochet case ) are not completely immune when it comes to violating peremptory norms, or commercial obligations etc, except only in exercise of their sovereign acts or 'iure imperii'. Hence the World Bank in this case certainly would not be enjoying an absolute immunity in its truly literal sense. And to make that happen, the legal framework in this issue has to be coherent and exhaustive, and for this reason there is no other alternative but to enact legislation in the parliament.

The government of Bangladesh however must proceed with due care on this issue and must take certain possible uncertainties into consideration, i.e. the legal consequences following an unforeseen insolvency of the organisation.

As it happened in the UK, lots of fictitious litigation arose (for example JH Rayner v. DTI [1990] 2 AC 418) after the collapse of the International Tin Council despite the organisation having immunity under the UK International Organisations Act 1968. So, the government ought to keep a careful eye on this issue and I'm sure parliamentary proceeding is the best method to ensure that. And I have my absolute support for the government over this.