The legal nature of the World Bank safeguards

Jokubauskaite, G. (2018) The legal nature of the World Bank safeguards. Verfassung in Recht und Übersee, 51(1), pp. 78-102. (doi: 10.5771/0506-7286-2018-1-78)

Abstract

Building on the Brunnée and Toope’s theory of interactional law and its use of Fuller’s criteria of legality, this paper argues that the World Bank safeguards, especially their reincarnation through the Environmental and Social Framework (ESF), is a source of law that is binding on all international legal subjects. The paper criticises categories such as ‘internal law’ and ‘soft law’ that are traditionally used to describe the status of non-treaty rules, arguing that such categories are theoretically opaque, thus leading to a ‘dead-end’ in the discussion about sources of normativity beyond the Article 38 of the ICJ statute. The core aim of this paper is to demonstrate that international legal obligations such as those created by the ESF can be understood in dynamic terms, and that we can only ascertain their legal nature by observing their impacts, operation and authoritativeness in practice.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Jokubauskaite, Dr Giedre
• Authors: Jokubauskaite, G.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Law
• Journal Name: Verfassung in Recht und Übersee
• Publisher: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft
• ISSN: 0506-7286
• ISSN (Online): 0506-7286
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2018 Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH and Co. KG
• First Published: First published in Verfassung in Recht und Übersee 51(1):78-102
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher