IMF – International Monetary Fund ence at which they were adopted and in chard, F.: L’Organisation Internationale du Series A of the Official Bulletin for the Travail: de la guerre froide à un nouvel ordre year of their adoption. Every year ILO mondial, Paris 2004; Gaudier, M.: The de- publishes an annual list of the ratifica- velopment of the women’s question at the ILO, 1919-1994 (ILO Discussion Paper), tions of ILO Conventions of the current Geneva 2006; Ghebali, V.: The International year. Labour Organization: A Case Study on the ILO publishes in regular intervals the Evolution of UN Specialized Agencies, “World Employment Report” and the Dordrecht et al. 1989; Hüfner, K.: Die Ver- “Global Employment Trends” (cf. ILO einten Nationen und ihre Sonderorganisatio- 2004 and ILO 2008b). nen. Strukturen, Aufgaben, Dokumente. Teil 2: Die Sonderorganisationen, 3rd edn., Bonn Assessment 1992; International Labour Office. The ILO: ILO is unique among the specialized what it is, what it does, Geneva 2003; Inter- agencies of the UN system. Involving national Labour Office: World Employment the social partners, the principle of tri- Report 2004-2005, Geneva 2004 (quoted as: partism embodies an institutionalized ILO 2004); International Labour Office: Rules of the Game: A brief introduction to dialogue among governments, trade un- international labour standards, Geneva 2005; ions and employers’ organizations on an International Labour Office: ILO Action international level. However, the roles Plan for Gender Equality 2008-09, Geneva of employers’ and employees’ organiza- 2008 (quoted as: ILO 2008a); International tions are widely divergent among mem- Labour Office: Global Employment Trends ber states. For example, in many states, 2008, Geneva 2008 (quoted as: ILO 2008b); free trade unions do not exist, so that tri- Servais, J.-M.: International Labour Law, partism, in these cases, is not much The Hague 2005; Köhler, P.A.: ILO – Inter- more than a sham. Nonetheless, the national Labour Organization, in: Wofrum, R. (ed.): United Nations: Law, Policies and principle has basically had a positive ef- Practice, 2 vols., Munich/Dordrecht 1995, fect on international regulation and Vol. 1, 714-723. codification efforts in the realm of in- Internet: Homepage of ILO: www.ilo.org; ternational labor standards. access to ILO Conventions and Recommen- ILO can be considered the “social dations: www.ilo.org/ilolex/english/index. conscience” of the UN system. How- htm; access to literature on ILO and labour ever, it only has a minor role to play issues in general: http://labordoc.ilo.org/; list when compared to the much more im- of the ratifications of ILO conventions in the portant (and influential) economic com- current year: http://webfusion.ilo.org/pub- ponents of the wider system of interna- lic/db/standards/normes/appl/index.cfm?lang= tional institutions, i.e. the Bretton Woods EN. institutions World Bank (→ World Bank, World Bank Group) and Interna- tional Monetary Fund (→ IMF). Despite IMF – International Monetary Fund that fact, ILO has been pivotal in the 1. Origins development of international human rights standards (→ Human Rights; → In July 1944 the United Nations con- Human Rights, Protection of), for ex- vened an International Monetary and Fi- ample in implementation and control nancial Conference at Bretton Woods mechanisms. These have originally been (New Hampshire, USA), in which all 44 developed under the auspices of ILO participating states agreed on a new or- and have then been adopted by other der for the world monetary and financial UN agencies. In appreciation of its mer- system in the post-war era. The back- its, ILO was awarded the Nobel Peace drop to the gathering was dominated by Prize in 1969. still vivid memories of inconvertibility and foreign exchange shortages, hyper- Christian Jetzlsperger inflation and deflation, and default on external debt of the preceding decades; Lit.: Alcock, A.: History of the International thus the motivation to reach an agree- Labour Organization, New York 1971; Blan- 398 IMF – International Monetary Fund ment was strong. It was hoped to estab- payments and thus avoid extreme exter- lish a system which could prevent a re- nal surplus or deficit on the part of indi- currence of the disastrous competitive vidual countries; (e) to establish a finan- exchange rate depreciations and the cial support system for countries to cor- breakdown in international economic re- rect maladjustments in their balance of lations these countries had experienced payments (cf. Articles of Agreement, in the inter-war period. Art. I). The agreements they signed there pro- III. Status in the UN System, Member- vided for the establishment of the inter- ship and Organs national monetary and trading system known as the “Bretton Woods System”. In 1947 the IMF received the status of a Although the Havana Charter (→ WTO, specialized agency (→ Specialized GATT) was not ratified by the US Con- Agencies) in the → UN system and, was gress, leading to the indefinite post- thus endowed with full juridical person- ponement of the International Trade Or- ality and entitled to conclude interna- ganization (ITO), the Conference did tionally binding agreements. Further- prove the birthplace of two major insti- more, the Fund is endowed with all the tutions: the International Bank for Re- rights of an autonomous governmental construction and Development (IBRD) organization, including the right to es- (→ World Bank, World Bank Group) tablish its own budget, recruit its own and the International Monetary Fund personnel and to admit new member (IMF). The IMF was established by the countries. Thus membership of the UN “Articles of Agreement of the Interna- (→ Membership and Representation of tional Monetary Fund” (UNTS Vol. 2, States) is not a prerequisite of member- No. 20 (a)), which entered into force on ship of the IMF. A total of 185 countries 27 December 1945 after ratification by are members (as of 31 December 2008). 22 states. It began its operations in 1947. In principle any country can become a The IMF has its headquarters in member of the IMF if it accepts the “Ar- Washington, D.C. in conformity to Arti- ticles of Agreement” as the basis for its cle XIII, Section I of the Articles of monetary and financial policies, and Agreement, which stipulates that the pays the appropriate subscription to the IMF shall have its seat on the territory authorized IMF depository. The allo- of the member with the largest capital cated quota determines the voting power stock quota. The largest member is the with which the country can participate United States of America with a quota in the internal decision-making proc- of 17.09 per cent (equivalent to SDR 37 esses of the Fund. Countries with the billion) and related voting rights of highest quotas therefore have the great- 16.77 per cent (April 2008). If the 15 est voting power and influence on IMF countries of the euro area were consid- policy. ered a single entity as some observers The three key executive organs of the call for, it would replace the USA as the IMF are the Board of Governors, the largest member. Executive Board and the Managing Di- rector. The Board of Governors is the II. Aims highest executive organ of the IMF and According to the Articles of Agreement meets once a year during the general the IMF is dedicated to five main pur- meeting of the IMF and World Bank. poses: (a) to promote multilateral mone- All IMF member countries are repre- tary co-operation; (b) to facilitate inter- sented on the Board of Governors, with national trade and high levels of em- voting power weighted according to ployment in member countries; (c) to quotas. The Board of Governors has ex- promote exchange stability, maintain or- clusive powers to decide on the admis- derly exchange arrangements and avoid sion or suspension of members (Art. II, competitive exchange depreciation; (d) Art. XXVI), determining or changing to correct disequilibrium in balances of quotas (Art. III) and amendments to the 399