On August 8, 2019, the World Bank Group (WBG) Sanctions Board Secretariat hosted an event for practitioners from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Court of Justice and the Independent Redress Mechanism of the Green Climate Fund to discuss management of cases in the context of different dispute-resolution mechanisms. The event was coordinated with the International Law Institute and also included speakers from the Secretariats to the World Bank Administrative Tribunal and the World Bank Inspection Panel.
The speakers presented on the substantive work of the dispute-resolution mechanisms they support and the details of how individual cases are managed. Specifically, the discussions addressed the purpose and process of the WBG’s sanctions system, the role and contributions of the Inspection Panel, and the work of the Administrative Tribunal in the context of the WBG’s family of Internal Justice Services. In spite of the diversity of processes, the colloquium distilled a number of cross-cutting issues, including the commitment to protect sensitive information related to individual disputes, the concept of a “case life cycle,” and the secretariats’ ability (and responsibility) to function as a source of institutional memory for the decision-makers who often serve limited terms. Participants within and outside the WBG consistently recognized the overlap between case management and the ability to identify long term data trends and patterns among cases.
The WBG Sanctions Board Secretariat warmly thanks the following participants for their substantive contributions to the colloquium:
- World Bank Administrative Tribunal Secretariat: Adejoké Babington-Ashaye, Sr. Counsel; Farkanda Haseen, Legal Analyst.
- World Bank Inspection Panel: Imrana Jalal, Inspection Panel Chairperson; Serge Selwan, Sr. Operations Officer at the Inspection Panel Secretariat.
- WBG Sanctions Board Secretariat: Eugenia Pyntikova, Counsel; Felipe Rocha dos Santos, Counsel; Sharon C. Louis Chandran, Legal Analyst.
- International Law Institute: Gerhard Botha, Director of Programs.
