International Financial Institutions and Sustainable Development
Lawmaking and Accountability

With international financial institutions' unprecedented power to authoritatively decide on 'sustainable development' in the Global South comes greater legal accountability.

Johanna Aleria P. Lorenzo (Author)

9781009407267, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 26 June 2025

269 pages
23.5 x 16 x 2 cm, 0.53 kg

Balancing theoretical and practice-oriented elements, this book introduces researchers, teachers, and students in international sustainable development law to the IFIs' safeguard policies. It also scrutinizes the case law of independent accountability mechanisms that interpret those policies and afford recourse to individuals and communities adversely affected by development projects. The book's focus on the procedural and substantive features of IFIs' safeguard systems contributes to a more concrete understanding of these organizations' participation in the international lawmaking process on sustainable development. It puts IFIs in the spotlight and provides an international legal critique of their activities to match their notoriety in popular consciousness and to enhance their accountability to those they harm. By approaching international (economic) law and sustainable development through the lens of economic, environmental, and social issues arising in development projects primarily in the Global South, the book presents a needed counterbalance to existing literature on the topic.

1. Introduction: situating (Sustainable) development and non-state actors in international law
2. Sustainability's journey: snapshots from Stockholm, Rio, Copenhagen, The Hague, Johannesburg, and New York
3. Detour to Bretton woods: re-constructing the international bank for sustainable development
4. Public participation and integration: procedural and substantive principles of sustainable development
5. Safeguard systems: legal institutional framework for sustainability of development projects
6. IFIs as lawmakers i: hardening international 'soft' law on sustainable development and externalizing 'internal' law on development finance
7. IFIs as lawmakers II: harmonizing and coordinating towards a droit commun on sustainable development
8. Institutional lawmaking and international legal accountability: finding remedies for un-sustainable development projects
Conclusion: a place for accountable non-state actors in international sustainable development lawmaking.

Subject Areas: International economic & trade law [LBBM]