Indigenous Peoples in the World Bank Group's Practice

This book explores whether the World Bank Group, despite not being formally bound by international human rights law, operates in accordance with it when financing investment projects involving indigenous peoples, who are often among the most impacted.

The inquiry proceeds along two principal strands, grounded in the distinction between operations targeting public and private sector recipients. First, it traces the evolution of the World Bank Group’s policies on indigenous peoples, which are binding on its staff and, once incorporated into loan agreements, on financing recipients as well. Second, it examines the interpretative practice of the organization’s Independent Accountability Mechanisms, which review compliance with these policies throughout the project cycle. It finds that the policies have evolved alongside key developments in international law and that the Independent Accountability Mechanisms consistently reference both hard and soft international legal instruments in their assessments.

Building on these findings, the book reconsiders whether the World Bank Group may, in fact, be subject to international human rights obligations. Departing from traditional deductive reasoning, it adopts an inductive approach grounded in institutional practice. It argues that the World Bank Group, as an international legal actor, is bound by an emerging body of rules and principles of general international law and calls for a reassessment of the organization’s role in shaping the human rights discourse on indigenous peoples.