GENERAL INFORMATION
 Q: General Information About the World Bank
Q: Employment at the World Bank
Q: History of the World Bank
BANK DOCUMENTS + PUBLICATIONS
Q: Finding World Bank Legal Agreements - are they public documents?
Q: Locating IMF and World Bank Group Publications
Q: Locating ICSID decisions / awards RESEARCH GUIDANCE
Q: Searching JOLIS OTHER
Q: Media contacts at the World Bank: Speakers and Interviews ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Q: General Information About the World Bank
A: The World Bank provides access to General Information through its "About Us" Web page. Links to additional information (Articles of Agreement, membership, etc.) may be found on the Law Resource Center Web page. :: Back
Q: History of the World Bank
A: The Archives Unit of the Bank has created a World Bank Group Historical Chronology. :: Back You may also view a selection of research questions and replies received through the Legal Help Desk below.
Q: What date did the term "World Bank" come into use?
Q: Where is the World Bank incorporated?
Q: What are the Bretton Woods Agreements Act and the International Organizations Immunities Act?
Q: How many times have the Articles of Agreement been amended?
Q: How many Executive Directors does the Bank have? Where can I find more information on the EDs?
Q: What is the legal status of loan agreements made by the World Bank?
Q: What are the restrictions on World Bank lending?
Q: How does the World Bank define "developed" and "developing" countries?
Q: How does the Bank enforce its lending agreements?
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Q: What date did the term "World Bank" come into use?
A: Answer provided by Legal Department Counsel. 1. In a short monograph of 1986 (in the series Que sais-je?), Henri Bretaudeau, a former member of the Bank's Paris office, wrote on page 11 that, while the origins of the expression "World Bank" are uncertain, the "Anglo-Saxon press" seems to be responsible for its introduction, on account of its brevity. He added that "World Bank" was first used in a Bank's official publication in the Annual Report published in 1955. 2. However, in footnote 3 on page 3 of a 1964 unpublished thesis available in the Bank Law Library, Takayoshi Suefuji remarked that the origins of the expression "World Bank" can be traced farther back to President Truman's message of September 23, 1946, to the Chairman of the Bank's and IMF's Boards of Governors. Upon a cursory review of the proceedings and related documents of the first annual meeting of the Board of Governors (September 27-October 3, 1946), I noted that the expression "World Bank" was, on that occasion, not only used by President Truman twice in his four-paragraph message, but was also used in the opening address by John W. Snyder, US Secretary of the Treasury and Chairman of the Boards of Governors and in the statement by Fiorello H. LaGuardia, Director General of the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration and observer at the first annual meeting. As no other participant used the expression at the first annual meeting (if my reading was accurate), one might infer (subject of course to additional research) that, at its origins, the expression was especially dear to Americans. 3. That the use of the expression was introduced very early on after Bretton Woods finds indirect confirmation on page 22 of Jochen Kraske's Bankers with a Mission, where it is written that, at the time the US Secretary of State offered Meyer the presidency, IBRD was "already known as the World Bank". Earlier in his book (on page 1), Kraske had remarked that "World Bank" was "a nickname that originally reflected aspirations more than accomplishments". 4. The term "world bank" was used in reference to IBRD in an article in the Economist on July 22, 1944, in a report on the Bretton Woods Conference. The first meeting of the Boards of Governors of IBRD and the IMF, which was held in Savannah, Georgia in March 1946, was officially called the "World Fund and Bank Inaugural Meeting," and several news accounts of this conference, including one in the Washington Post, used the term "world bank". (A guide to the World Bank (2003) -- Box 2.2, page 11) :: Back
Q: Where is the World Bank incorporated?
A: Answer provided by Legal Department Counsel. The Bank is an international organization created under its Articles of Agreement (equivalent to a treaty). The Bank is not incorporated nor organized under the laws of any particular jurisdiction. The Bank maintains its headquarters in Washington, D.C., USA. :: Back
Q: What are the Bretton Woods Agreements Act and the International Organizations Immunities Act?
A: Answer provided by Law Resource Center staff. For a list on international organizations recognized by the US see 22 USC 288. Bretton Woods Agreement Act Delegates from 44 countries met in July 1944 in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to develop a means of economic coordination between states and to address the reconstruction of Europe after WWII. The planners at Bretton Woods established the IBRD and the IMF. After ratification of the Articles of Agreement by a sufficient number of states, the agencies became operational in 1946. U.S. : The ratification instrument of the United States is Bretton Woods Agreement Act, which was passed on July 31, 1945. The Act is cited in the following ways:P.L. 79-171, 59 STAT 512, or 22 USC sec. 286 The text of the P.L. 79-171 as originally passed in 1945 is available through HeinOnline (http://heinonline.org) and LexisNexis (http://www.lexis.com/). Use the U.S. Statutes at Large library in both cases. The codified version, with the amendments passed since 1945, is available through the following resources: - LexisNexis (http://www.lexis.com/ ) - US Code Service library
- GPO Access - use the browse feature to check for T. 22, Ch. 7, Subchapter 15, sec 286
- Cornell University - use the Table of contents feature to browse for T. 22, Ch. 7, Subchapter 15, sec.286
International Organizations Immunities Act This US Act passed in December 1945, extends priviliges and immunities to international organizations and its officers and employees. The Act is cited in the follwoign ways: P.L. 79-291, 59 STAT 669. The text of the P.L. 79-171 as originally passed in 1945 is available through HeinOnline (http://heinonline.org) and LexisNexis (http://www.lexis.com/). Use the U.S. Statutes at Large library in both cases.
::Back
Q: How many times have the Articles of Agreement been amended?
A:Answer provided by text World Bank in a Changing World. According to the 2000 publication, World Bank in a changing world (V. 3 p. 4), by Ibrahim F.I. Shihata (former General Counsel), the Articles of Agreement of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) have been amended only twice since their entry into force in 1946. The first amendment introduced in 1965 authorized the Bank to lend, within certain limits, to the International Finance Corporation (IFC) (see US Public Law 89-126 or 79 Stat 519). The second amendment, introduced in 1989, was to make further amendments more difficult by requiring approval of members having 85 percent, and not, as previously stipulated, 80 percent, of the total voting power (see US Public Law 100-202 or 101 Stat 1329-134). The constituent agreement of the IFC, which entered into force in 1956, was amended twice, in 1961 and 1965 (the latter amendment to allow it to borrow from the Bank) . Agreements establishing the three other organizations in the Group, the International Development Association (IDA), the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) have not been subject to any amendment since their entry into force, in 1960, 1966 and 1988,respectively . ::Back
Q: How many Executive Directors does the Bank have? Where can I find more information on the EDs?
A:Answer provided by Law Resource Center staff
The Articles of Agreement have the original number of EDs when the Bank was established. There is no requirement to amend the Articles to increase the number of elected EDs.
IBRD Articles of Agreement
SECTION 4. Executive Directors (a) The Executive Directors shall be responsible for the conduct of the general operations of the Bank, and for this purpose, shall exercise all the powers delegated to them by the Board of Governors.
(b) There shall be twelve Executive Directors, who need not be governors, and of whom:
(i) five shall be appointed, one by each of the five members having the largest number of shares;
(ii) seven shall be elected according to Schedule B by all the Governors other than those appointed by the five members referred to in (i) above. For the purpose of this paragraph, "members" means governments of countries whose names are set forth in Schedule A, whether they are original members or become members in accordance with Article 11, Section I (b). When governments of other countries become members, the Board of Governors may, by a four-fifths majority of the total voting power, increase the total number of directors by increasing the number of directors to be elected.
For additional information on the Executive Directors, please see: http://go.worldbank.org/11PWB3RTM0
Q: What is the legal status of loan agreements made by the World Bank?
A: Answer provided by Legal Department Counsel. In 1959, Aron Broches, General Counsel of the World Bank, wrote the following regarding the status of the agreements made by the Bank with member governments: "(...) the Bank and the State which is a member of the Bank, are both subjects of international law and possess treaty-making capacity and since, even if the treaty-making capacity of the Bank is not unlimited, it must certainly extend to the loan and guarantee agreements which the Bank enters into in the course of carrying out what is probably its most important constitutional task." The article continues by explaining the discussion around Article 102 of the U.N. Charter relating to the registration of every treaty and every international agreement. After this, the author reached the conclusion that the loan and guarantee agreements of the Bank are international agreements: "(...) the Bank's loan and guarantee agreements with its members are international agreements governed by international law. The steps by which I reached this conclusion were that the Bank is a subject of international law, that has treaty-making capacity, that capacity extends to the conclusion of loan and guarantee agreements and, finally, that the Bank's loan and guarantee agreements with its members are concluded in the exercise of that capacity and are intended to be, and are, governed by international law. Because of their character as international agreements, loan and guarantee agreements made between the Bank and those of its members which are also members of the United Nations are registered with the Secretariat of the United Nations in accordance with the provisions of Article 102 of the U.N. Charter and the Regulations issued thereunder. Article 102 calls for the registration of 'every treaty and every international agreement' made by members of the United Nations. Loan and guarantee agreements concluded with members of the Bank which are not members of the United Nations are submitted to the Secretariat for filing and recording pursuant to Article 10 of the Regulations." For further information, here is the full reference of this article : "International Legal Aspects of the Operations of the World Bank", published in " Hague: Academie de droit international: Receuil des cours", 1959, III, p.297-409.
::Back
Q: What are the restrictions on World Bank lending?
A: The IBRD Operational Manual sets out the rules for Bank financing:
Operational Manual: http://www.worldbank.org/opmanual
Bank financing:
http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/Institutional/Manuals/OpManual.nsf/tocall/C22F1032D7DFD30285256E8A00763966?OpenDocument
IFC posts an exclusion list: http://www.ifc.org/ifcext/enviro.nsf/Content/IFCExclusionList
:: Back
Q: How does the World Bank define "developed" and "developing" countries? A: The Bank posts a “Classification of Countries” on its web pages: (http://www.worldbank.org/data/countryclass/countryclass.html) “Classifications and data reported for geographic regions are for low-income and middle-income economies only. Low-income and middle-income economies are sometimes referred to as developing economies. The use of the term is convenient; it is not intended to imply that all economies in the group are experiencing similar development or that other economies have reached a preferred or final stage of development. Classification by income does not necessarily reflect development status.” (Excerpt) (http://www.worldbank.org/data/countryclass/history.htm) “In general discussions in Bank reports, the term "developing economies" has been used to denote the set of low and middle income economies. Bank publications with notes on the classification of economies state that the term "developing economies... does not imply either that all the economies belonging to the group are actually in the process of developing, nor that those not in the group have necessarily reached some preferred or final stage of development." (Excerpt)
The IFC also posts information on "emerging markets" on its web page:http://www.ifc.org/ifcext/50thanniversary.nsf/Content/Fact_sheet_English
:: Back
Q: How does the Bank enforce its lending agreements?
A: Answer provided by Legal Department Counsel. The World Bank, legally known as the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, is a public international organization created by sovereign member nations. The Bank's Articles of Agreement are accepted by each of its members upon membership. Under the Bank's Articles, the Bank makes loans to member countries or to entities in member countries, with the guarantee of the member. Each of the agreements providing for such loans are governed by the Bank's General Conditions Applicable to Loans and Guarantees. The General Conditions provide, with respect to enforceability, that the rights and obligations of the Bank under such agreements shall be valid and enforceable in accordance with their terms notwithstanding the law of any State or political subdivision thereof to the contrary. The General Conditions also provide for arbitration in event of a dispute. Questions of sovereign immunity that would apply to a domestic financial institution are not relevant to the Bank's enforcement of its lending agreements. :: Back
Q: Employment at the World Bank
A: The Careers at the World Bank Group Web page contains information on available positions and application procedures. The Legal D | 
