Law, Justice, and Development

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The Law, Justice, and Development series is offered by the Legal Vice Presidency of the World Bank to provide insights into aspects of law and justice that are relevant to the development process. Works in the series present new legal and judicial reform activities related to the World Bank’s work, as well as analyses of domestic and international law. The series is intended to be accessible to a broad audience as well as to legal practitioners.

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Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
  • Publication
    The World Bank Legal Review, Volume 4 : Legal Innovation and Empowerment for Development
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2013) Cissé, Hassane; Muller, Sam; Thomas, Chantal; Wang, Chenguang; Cissé, Hassane; Muller, Sam; Thomas, Chantal; Wang, Chenguang
    The World Bank legal review gathers this input from around the world and compiles it into a useful resource for all development practitioners and scholars. The subtitle of this volume, legal innovation and empowerment for development, highlights how the law can respond to the chal-lenges posed to development objectives in a world slowly emerging from an economic crisis. The focus on innovation is a call for new, imaginative strategies and ways of thinking about what the law can do in the development realm. The focus on empowerment is a deliberate attempt to place the law into the hands of the poor; to give them another tool with which to resist poverty. This volume shows some of the ways that the law can make an innovative and empowering difference in development scenarios. Development problems are complex and varied, and the theme of innovation and empowerment naturally has a broad scope. Consequently, this volume reaches far and wide. It considers the nature, promise, and limitations of legal innovation and legal empowerment. It looks at concrete examples in places such as Africa, the Asia-Pacific region, and Latin America. It considers developments in issues with universal application, such as the rights of the disabled and the effectiveness of asset recovery measures. The theme of legal innovation and empowerment for development complements substantive and institutional sensibilities in current development policy. Substantively, development policy discourse seems to have moved away from tacking hard toward statist policy or neoliberal policy. Although this brief introduction cannot do justice to the richness and complexity of these contributions, it does consider each focal point in turn.
  • Publication
    The World Bank Legal Review : Law, Equity, and Development, Volume 2
    (Washington, DC: World Bank and Martinus Nijhoff, 2006) World Bank
    The World Bank legal review: law, equity, and development, volume two, is a publication for policy makers and their advisers, attorneys, and other professionals engaged in the field of international development. It offers a combination of legal scholarship, lessons from experience, legal developments, and recent research on the many ways in which the application of law and the improvement of justice systems promote poverty reduction, economic development, and the rule of law. In keeping with the theme of the World Development Report 2006: equity and development, and following the success of the World Bank Group's legal forum on 'law, equity, and development' in December 2005, volume two of the World Bank legal review focuses on issues of equity and development. The volume draws together some of the key ideas of the Legal Forum, including articles by many of its distinguished participants, and explores the role of equity in the development process, highlighting how legal and regulatory frameworks and equitable justice systems can do much to level the playing field in the political, economic, and socio-cultural domains, as well as how they can reinforce existing inequalities.
  • Publication
    Land Law Reform : Achieving Development Policy Objectives
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2006) Bruce, John W.; Giovarelli, Renée; Rolfes, Jr., Leonard; Bledsoe, David; Mitchell, Robert
    This book examines issues at the forefront of the debate on land law reform, pays particular attention to how reform options affect the poor and disadvantaged, and recommends strategies for alleviating poverty more effectively through land law reform. It reviews the role of the World Bank in land law reform, examining issues of process as well as substance. It also identifies key challenges and directions, and stresses the need to design law reforms in ways that suit diverse economic, legal, and institutional environments. This book is a contribution to comparative thinking on reform of the law relating to land. It examines the implications for land law reform in the broadening of development goals beyond growth to include environmental protection, poverty eradication, and achievement of gender equity, and it reviews a broad range of experience in land law reform. After the introductory chapter, chapter 2 examines how land law reform is achieved through World Bank initiatives. It reviews steps the Bank has taken to achieve comprehensive reforms of land law in the context of natural resource management and land reform programs and land administration projects. It also analyzes lessons learned from various land law reform processes. Chapter 3 addresses reform of rules affecting women's access to and rights in land. The topic is one in which broad recommendations are not necessarily easy due to cultural and other norms governing women's rights and freedoms regarding land. Chapter 4 examines how to develop land markets while minimizing adverse effects and enhancing positive impacts on the poor. Chapter 5 discusses the importance of titling and registration of land rights, reviews concepts that are supported by the Bank in many of its land projects, and describes how titling and registration can affect economic growth and the alleviation of poverty. Chapter 7 deals with issues of equity and poverty in the context of conservation and environmental protection of farms and forests. It examines the role of individual property rights, as well as the legal tools that can be used to encourage conservation. The conclusion draws together significant aspects from all the chapters that are needed for effective land law reform.
  • Publication
    Legal Aspects of Financial Services Regulation and the Concept of a Unified Regulator
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2006-01-01) Mwenda, Kenneth Kaoma
    This study addresses the legal and policy issues underpinning the development of, and the strengthening of the regulatory and institutional framework for unified financial services supervision. The study discusses developments in a number of jurisdictions, among them Australia, Canada, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Malta, the Scandinavian countries, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Chapter 1 examines conceptual issues to be taken into account in designing a sound regulatory and institutional framework for financial services supervision. The chapter also provides a working definition of "regulation" and delves into the intricacies of designing the appropriate regulatory framework. Chapter 2 analyzes the concept of an independent financial services regulator, arguing that a unified regulator that is both independent and accountable would help promote the development of a sound financial sector. Chapter 3 discusses the concept of a unified regulator, examining the question of whether every country should adopt a model of unified financial services supervision. Chapter 4 provides country studies, addressing the efficacy of the framework for unified financial services supervision in Latvia, the United Kingdom, and the Scandinavian countries. Finally, Chapter 5 defines policy recommendations and possible constitutional, and legal challenges that might be encountered when a country is considering unifying its regulation of financial services.
  • Publication
    The Human Right to Water : Legal and Policy Dimensions
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2004) Salman, Salman M.A.; McInerney-Lankford, Siobhán
    The evolution of the right to water can be traced to the developments of the early 1970s. This Study analyzes the resolutions and declarations of the various conferences and forums that have been held since that time, and the ways in which they have confronted the issue of the right to water. The Study then discusses the evolution of the international legal regime for the protection and promotion of human rights, and pays particular attention to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, as well as to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The role of each of the committees established to oversee the implementation of the two Covenants is considered in some detail. Particular attention is given to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, its evolution, and its strengthening, and the practice of issuing General Comments. The last two parts of the Study are devoted to General Comment No. 15, which recognizes the human right to water. These parts analyze the extent to which the Comment recognizes a legal right to water, and highlights some policy aspects that are related to, and may affect, this right. The core thesis of this book is that there exists, within the legal framework of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, a human right to water because it is a right that inheres in several other rights, and a right without which key provisions of the Covenant would be rendered ineffectual. This conclusion is buttressed also by the interpretative authority that lies with the Committee having evolved from its initial form as a Working Group, to what is now undeniably, a fully-fledged entity, with significant formal authority and legitimacy. Although this conclusion acknowledges that General Comments do not create new rights, it recognizes that General Comment No. 15 extrapolates the normative and practical bases of a human right to water within the fabric of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Together with a number of General Assembly resolutions on the issue, including the Millennium Development Goal related to water, as well as the voluminous body of soft law provisions, the General Comment arguably provides further evidence that there is an incipient right to water evolving in public international law today. Moreover, the Comment has offered a new momentum to efforts aimed at translating those soft law commitments into substantive, precise, and legally binding obligations.
  • Publication
    The World Bank Legal Review : Law and Justice for Development, Volume 1
    (Washington, DC: World Bank and Kluwer Law International, 2003) World Bank
    Legal and regulatory aspects of E-Commerece and the Internet, by Hank Intven, Rdichard Pfohl, Cheryl Slusarchuk, and Barry Sookman. Intellectual property rights and the protection of public health in developing countries, by Carlos M. Correa. Assessing a bill in terms of the public interest : the legislator's role in the law-making process, by Ann Seidman and Robert Seidman. Property rights issues in common property regimes for forestry, by John Bruce. The quality of Judges, by Hon. Sandra E. Oxner. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the World Bank, by Ko-Yung Tung. Islamic law on interest : the 1999 Pakistan Supreme Court decision on Riba, by Akhtar Hamid. The instrument establishing the World Bank prototype carbon fund (PCF) and the first PCF emission reduction purchase agreement. Ethical norms for the judicial branch of the Republic of Guatemala. The right to housing : Government of the Republic of South Africa, and others v. Grootboom and others. Agreement establishing the African trade insurance agency. China and the knowledge economy : seizing the 21st century . Principles and guidelines for effective insolvency and creditor rights systems.
  • Publication
    Conflict and Cooperation on South Asia's International Rivers : A Legal Perspective
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2003) Salman, Salman M.A.; Uprety, Kishor
    The book analyzes five major bilateral treaty regimes on the South Asian subcontinent: between India and Bangladesh for the Ganges River; between India and Nepal for the Kosi, Gandaki, and Mahakali rivers; and, between India and Pakistan for the Indus River. It explains the background, and legal regimes of these international rivers in the context of the serious challenges to the water resources of the subcontinent, posed by significant population increases, urbanization, industrialization, and environmental degradation. International lawyers, and natural resource specialists will find this book to be useful and informative.