Revista de Ciencias Civiles y Jurídicas

Abstracto

International Economic Institutions: Developing the Concept of Substantive Accountability

Abayomi Al-Ameen

The need to hold International Institutions (IIs) accountable is well documented. In response to such clamours, there has been effort to implement some level of scrutiny of institutional actions either through an internal process or through some form of external review. It is contended that efforts so far made are inadequate as; first, the present level of scrutiny is often focused on institutional forms and procedures with scant or no visible scrutiny of the substantive actions of IIs. Secondly, even if substantive actions were to be scrutinised, many IIs (particularly international economic institutions) would escape scrutiny because of the somewhat blanket assumption that their acts are not authoritative. This paper seeks to establish the need to hold international institutions accountable for their substantive actions and in particular to broaden the scope of scrutiny to include seemingly innocuous “soft” measures through the adoption of “effect-perspective” in characterising an institution’s modus operandi.