Issues of Legitimacy

Part I of this study described the HIPC Initiative in conceptual terms and in practice. In a second step, Part II provided for a legal classification of the program under public international law. Complementary to these two parts, it was the aim of Part III to analyze the HIPC program in the wider structural context of the global governance debate and to display the various forms through which World Bank and IMF exercise public power under the HIPC debt relief program beyond the traditional sources of public international law. The tasks and governance functions which the IMF and the World Bank exercise under the HIPC program have been pictured from a global administrative law perspective and identified as being of a managerial nature. The Bank and the Fund centrally coordinate the HIPC relief process, integrate other creditors into the program, perform assessment and control functions and disseminate the relevant information to other relief partners and the public. What the global administrative law analysis of the HIPC program in Part III, however, not achieved, is to discuss the legitimacy of these governance activities exercised by the Bank and the Fund under the HIPC program. Even if the HIPC Initiative is legally non-binding, the powers exercised by both organizations raise questions of legitimacy. ⁵⁵⁶