Global Justice and the Bretton Woods Institutions

Abstract

Together with the WTO, the Bretton Woods Institutions are the preeminent international institutions devoted to managing international economic relations. This mandate puts them squarely in the center of the debate concerning development, inequality and global justice. This essay explores how justice criteria might apply to the ideology and operations of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Using the Rawlsian model of egalitarian justice adapted to international institutions by the author in connection with the WTO, this essay asks what difference it would make for the Bank and Fund if an explicit justice framework informed their international lending activities.