Between Light and Shadow. By Mac Darrow, Portland, Ore.: Hart Publishing, 2003. Pp. 353. $55.00, cloth.

This book, which focuses on the mandate and functions of the World Bank (Bank) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), belongs to a growing genre of works on human rights obligations of International Financial Institutions (IFIs). What sets it apart from other works in this genre is its rigor and depth. Darrow analyzes meticulously legal grounds for such integration and develops concrete policy recommendations to implement the integration agenda.

After introductory remarks, Chapter Two reviews the origins and contemporary roles of the IFIs. While Darrow notes the official position of both IFIs, that engagement with human rights issues is beyond their mandate, he is also quick to remind us that it is acknowledged by both institutions that their work could enhance human rights. In the author’s view, the Bank seems to have taken incorporation of human rights into its work more seriously, whereas the IMF tends to regard human rights work, or “social issues” in IMF parlance, as the task falling under the mandate of the Bank. Darrow, however, does not spare the Bank from criticism, noting that its efforts to incorporate human rights in its work have been selective, of little practical relevance in the Bank’s work, and at best of merely “marginal relevance to the Bank’s research agenda and substantive policy developments.”

Chapter Three examines direct/indirect and positive/negative impacts of the policies and activities of the IFIs on the realization of human rights. Darrow acknowledges that theoretically IFIs’ policies and activities could have positive human rights impact although they might have not been primarily intended to focus on human rights as such. He catalogues several cases to underline his argument that activities and policies of IFIs could have negative human rights impact.

Chapter Four answers the question of whether and to what extent the mandates of the IFIs support or hinder human rights integration agenda. In Darrow’s view, constitutive instruments of the IFIs do not impose significant impediments for taking human rights considerations in the activities and policies of IFIs if such instruments were to be construed in light of their objects and purpose and with regard to contemporary circumstances.

Chapter Five identifies and analyzes four potential constraints (both theoretical and practical) to genuine integration of human rights in the work of IFIs. First, there are institutional barriers to integration within the IFIs. Second, the IFIs have a tendency to prescribe a “one-size-fits-all” macro-economic policy in their operations which does not make it easy to intervene in favor of human rights in a specific client state. Third, there are difficulties in integrating human rights in the IFIs arising from apparent inter-disciplinary clash between economics and human rights, made worse by the fact that economists tend to constitute a significant majority in the IFI’s staff. Fourth, there are limitations on the extent to which one could rely on human rights-inspired conditionalities in the IFIs’ agreements with client states to secure better protection of human rights in those states.

Chapter Six identifies areas where human rights could be integrated in the work of the IFIs either in fulfilment of legal obligations of the IFIs or as a means to achieve the IFIs’ objectives more effectively. Darrow is emphatic on the need for the IFIs to be more accountable to the constituency affected by their policies and for elevation of socio-economic rights to the same level as civil and political rights in the IFIs’ human rights policies and practices. Darrow concludes in Chapter Seven: “[T]here is both need and scope for the IFIs to take better and more explicit account of human rights concerns in their work.”

Human rights students and scholars will find the in-depth legal analysis, particularly in Chapter Four, very useful in shedding light on unanswered questions related to human rights obligations of IFIs. The rich references in the footnotes and a comprehensive bibliography at the end of the book provide useful leads to a scholar interested in exploring this subject further. The concrete policy proposals and acknowledgement of political environment under which the IFIs operate makes the book useful to human rights practitioners in developing practical strategies and persuasive arguments for engaging the IFIs on their human rights obligations.

Three critical issues, however, are not sufficiently addressed in the book. First, with the introduction of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), the door is opened to bring human rights issues in the activities of both IFIs. Darrow seems too focused on criticizing the process and thus loses opportunities for creating value by appreciating the positive elements of the process and offering concrete suggestions for building on these positive elements and then addressing the weak points.

Second, while touched upon by Darrow in passing, the issue of country-level cooperation and coordination of the work of IFIs and the U.N. agencies in the context of United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) and common country assessment (CCA) is insufficiently investigated in the book. The relevance of UNDAF/CCA to human rights is not limited to the fact that it provides a mechanism for coordinating the operations and activities of the U.N. agencies as well as IFIs at the country level. The UNDAF/CCA process uses the human rights-laden Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as one operating framework. Thus, there are human rights gains to be made were the World Bank and the IMF to be more actively involved in the UNDAF/CCA process.

Finally, there is inadequate acknowledgement in the book of the fact that both IFIs, particularly the World Bank, have improved their practices and policies related to human rights in recent years as exemplified by their interest in funding primary education in poor countries such as Tanzania. That said, one cannot disagree with Darrow’s conclusion that “human rights demand a much higher place than they presently occupy” in both IFIs, and that there is room for IFIs, and perhaps more so for the IMF than the Bank, to take “better and more explicit account of human rights concerns in their work.”

—Evarist Baimu

HLSHRJ@law.harvard.edu
This file was last modified: Monday, 01-Aug-2005 09:08:28 EDT