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Ending 30 years of IMF Exceptionalism: A Call for an Accountability Mechanism at the International Monetary Fund
Get PDFThis year marks the 30th anniversary of the World Bank’s Inspection Panel (WBIP or Panel), created as the result of grass-roots and international pressure on the Bank to address the well-documented negative impacts on marginalised communities of the Bank-financed Narmada dam and similar projects.
The establishment of the world’s first independent accountability mechanism (IAM) at the World Bank led to the creation of similar mechanisms at nearly all international financial institutions (IFIs), with the IMF an important exception. The establishment of the WBIP and other IAMs was a step-change in accountability, as previously IFIs were only accountable to shareholders and borrowers – as opposed to communities affected by their investments. That said, at the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the establishment of the international human rights system, IAMs remain severely constrained in their ability to ensure IFIs ‘do no harm’ and contribute, rather than negatively impact the ability of citizens to avail themselves of their human rights
[quote] The NFL Gains in Inclusive Hiring
No full textA professor of sports law at American University in Washington, Duru is a leading expert on the NFL’s hiring practices. He’s also the author of the definitive book on the creation of the Rooney Rule, Advancing The Ball: Race, Reformation, and the Quest for Equal Coaching Opportunity in the NFL.
Duru is more encouraged than ever about the NFL’s state of play.
“The NFL over the last several years has really been intentional about driving home to the clubs the importance of considering diverse candidates for … leadership positions. And the fruits of this intentionality are emerging,” he wrote to Andscape in a text message. “There is plenty of work left to be done, but we are definitely seeing progress toward leveling the playing field for candidates of color.
Robots, Markets, and the Value of Deal Lawyers
Get PDFEmerging forms of automation using artificial intelligence (AI) and distributed ledgers are raising transformative questions for the practice of law. Deal lawyers are well-situated to understand the convergence of various modes of automation and their implications for their clients and the markets they facilitate. This Article contends that digesting threats and leveraging opportunities associated with new technologies calls for granular, context-specific assessment. It presents one instance of automation in one predominant market—the market for asset-backed securities (ABS)—by comparing securitization to a blockchain-based analog, tokenization. It considers how lawyers support the ABS market and how automation of lawyers’ functions could intersect with automated issuances. This context-specific inquiry yields broader questions surrounding deal lawyers’ roles in the face of evolving technologies. Asset-backed issuances often create value with legal ambiguity. Lawyers facilitate these issuances by structuring legally complex assignments and then opining on the positions of investors. Automated platforms can alter the consequences of deliberate legal ambiguity, and as such can affect risks associated with asset-backed issuances. If established forms developed for non-automated deals serve as baselines to be digitized for automated transactions, then investors’ choices about platform may adversely affect issuers and their stakeholders. Lawyers have the capacity to understand and explain these dynamics. If AI models trained on existing deal documentation generate work-products for automated transactions, what kinds of effects and concerns should lawyers identify? The value and function of business lawyers came under scrutiny after corporate scandals at the start of the millennium and after the 2007–08 financial crisis, but the scrutiny subsided when market activity re-trenched. Automation, now, revives questions around the responsibilities of deal lawyers
Restoring Democracy Through International Law
Get PDFGrotius Lecturer Professor Kim Lane Scheppele of Princeton University and Distinguished Discussant Former Chief Justice Manuel José Cepeda Espinosa of the Constitutional Court of Colombia provided the Twenty-Fifth Annual Grotius Lecture on Wednesday, March 29, 2023, at 5:00 p.m
Accidental Corporate Social Norms
Get PDFCorporations deliberately attempt to shape social norms through advertising, publicity, and political contributions. This paper considers the threat of corporations’ accidental influence on social norms and expectations. When corporations have accidents, we frequently focus on direct harms: an oil platform may catch fire and explode, leading to environmental and human losses. These accidents may also impact social norms, though. If users stay with a dominant social networking firm despite repeated data privacy breaches, for example, people might come to accept a lack of data privacy. Dominant firms may inadvertently facilitate rapid reshaping of societal expectations. Judicial recognition of this threat can pave the way for more stable law that provides the opportunity for more organic societal development
Fintech and the False Promise of Techno-Solutionism
No full textFor about a decade, financial regulators have been grappling with the rise of fintech and the ways it disrupts financial regulation. But something is often lacking in these policy conversations. In a new draft article, I argue that financial regulators need to engage more critically with the “tech” aspects of fintech. In particular, they need to ask whether it’s even possible for technological innovations to address the deep-seated and complex problems that fintech’s proponents say they can solve
Sovereignty, Survival and Climate Justice: Legal and Political Frontiers of the Blue Pacific Continent
Get PDFGrotius Lecturer Dame Meg Taylor and Distinguished Discussant Julian Aguon provided the Twenty-Sixth Annual Grotius Lecture on Wednesday, April 3, 2024 at 5:00 p.m
Challenging the Johnson Amendment: What SAFE SPACE Gets Right - and Wrong
Get PDFThere has long been a scholarly debate about the so-called Johnson Amendment, which is the statutory provision that prohibits charities from “intervening” in campaigns for public office. Some scholars argue that the Johnson Amendment, or at least the IRS’s interpretation of it, unconstitutionally prevents charities from exercising their fundamental rights to speech or religious liberty. Activists have tried to provoke IRS enforcement of the prohibition so they could argue their interpretation of the Constitution in court, but the IRS appeared to be avoiding litigation on the issue. On March 18, Students and Academics for Free Expression, Speech, and Political Action in Campus Education Inc. (SAFE SPACE) sued the IRS in Tax Court after the agency failed to act on the organization’s application for tax-exempt status, which described SAFE SPACE’s plan to endorse candidates for public office on its website. This lawsuit represents the first time in decades that there is pending litigation about the constitutionality of the IRS’s interpretation of the Johnson Amendment
