End racism and provide access to justice at the World Bank

We, the undersigned, are members of Justice for Blacks, a group consisting of current and former World Bank staff organized to restore the human dignity and rights of people of African heritage in the World Bank. Please see ‘Unmasking Racist World Bank’ (11/28/2012) and ‘Africa Orphaned and Under Guardianship at the World Bank’ (2/14/2013) published in this forum. See also ‘World Bank reforms must embrace racial equality and accountability,’ published in the Guardian, UK (27/11/2012), ‘World Bank: Anatomy of a Criminal Tribunal’ published in Nigeria Sun (2/15/2013), and ‘Investigate ‘Ghettoization’ of Blacks at the World Bank’ published in the Ethiopian Reporter (10/28/2012).

We write to you ahead of the upcoming World Bank Annual Meetings in Washington in your capacities as Africa’s most influential Ministers of Finance and members of the World Bank Board of Governors with the highest voting rights amongst your African counterparts. We respectfully and humbly urge you to take leadership role in bringing together African Board of Directors to promote our proposal spelled out below to redress racial discrimination and reform the justice system in the World Bank. In particular we ask that you table the issue at the Annual Meetings and promote our demand to establish a high-level external commission to investigate our charges of systemic and prolonged human rights violations against staff members of African heritage by the World Bank and its Administrative Tribunal.

The Bank regularly uses high-level external panels and commissions to address various issues. One recent example is the so called ‘The Volcker Panel’ that was ‘constituted to review the work of the Department of Institutional Integrity and to place that work in the context of the World Bank Group’s Governance and Anticorruption (GAC) strategy.’ However, the Bank’s management and its Executive Directors have consistently rejected any proposal to constitute such a panel to investigate systemic and prolonged human rights violations against Black employees.

THE BIG ELEPHANT

Racism in the World Bank is the big elephant in the room whose existence is acknowledged, but whose assault is not addressed. Over the last decades, Blacks in the World Bank have seen three types of presidents. There were those who acknowledged the problem and pretended to be concerned, but did nothing beyond the proverbial lip service. There were also those who did not even bother to pretend. Their attitude was that Blacks are lucky to be in the World Bank and should stop fussing. And then there were those who truly cared, but their policies lacked the courage of their convictions.

Racial discrimination remains systemic and victims of discrimination continue to suffer without access to justice. These are facts that have been established in over a dozen Bank-commissioned and independent reports and raised in dozens of articles published in the Washington Post, the Huffington Post, the UK Guardian, the Atlanta Black Star, the Los Angeles Herald, the Pambazuka News, the Africa Report, the Nigeria Sun, the Ethiopian Reporter, the Nation in Kenya, among others.

Systemic racial discrimination and the denial of access to legal redress represent serious violations of human rights that are condemned by a multitude of international human rights instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. However, the twin problems continue unabated because the Bank treats them as public relations nuisances rather than as human rights violations.
Past reform initiatives have been sporadic and inconsequential because they were often launched in response to public outcries triggered by racist incidents. Such reforms fizzle out as soon as the public outrage subsides. For example, President Wolfensohn’s highly publicized 1998 reform was triggered by a breathtakingly racist public statement by one of the Bank’s directors to ‘keep Blacks in the Ghetto of the Bank.’ The reform that promised to root-out institutional racism and establish ‘the most effective and progressive justice system of its kind’ proved futile for three reasons.

First, the President tweaked and recycled its inherently racist institutions rather than overhauling them. Second, he failed to hold his senior managers accountable and instead put them in charge of implementing the reform policies. Third, he ignored key recommendations that were recommended by two independent groups that he established -- the ‘Team for Racial Equality and the Grievance Process Review Committee.’ His reform was partly neglected, partly sabotaged and ultimately aborted.

Years after the 1998 reform, racial discrimination remains ‘systemic’ , and the majority of the staff still has no confidence in the internal justice system and ‘would never use it if they experienced racial discrimination.’ In 2005, the Staff Association concluded: "One thing is for sure: for black staff in the Bank, a workable solution to discrimination is definitely needed, and soon." In 2009, Bea Edwards, Executive Director of the Government Accountability Project (GAP) noted: “Eleven years have passed since the Bank’s 1998 Task Force quantified the impact of discrimination on Blacks. Indications are that nothing has changed for the better. If anything, the situation has worsened.” Ms. Edwards’ statement was made a year after yet another futile World Bank reform that was launched in 2008. Ironically, even one of the Tribunal judges is on the record in 2013 sharing his candid views on the lack of legal redress. The judge wrote to a victim of racial discrimination stating:

‘I held up the Tribunal’s judgment for some months pleading your case but was outnumbered. I did not find it fit to dissent. I was not yet ready for such a momentous step … I have been in this business a long time and know what litigating against an employer does to the employee who sees his rights trumpled (sic) without remedy.’

The judge’s lack of valor to stand up for justice on racial discrimination claims is not an isolated anomaly, but represents the Tribunal’s de facto policy and longstanding practice of denying victims of racial discrimination basic due process rights. The very judge who was “not yet ready” to dissent on racial discrimination claims did not have any problem writing a dissenting opinion six months later on a case that did not involve racial discrimination (See Zeynep Koçlar v World Bank).

Previous reform initiatives were undercut by a lack of managerial accountability. Not a single manager has been held responsible for racial discrimination, not even the director who stated in public that ‘Blacks make poor accountants and the department could not hire too many blacks as the department would look like a ghetto.’ Addressing the openly racist Director’s statement and discriminatory practices in his department, the Bank’s Appeals Panel and the Tribunal recommended ‘an internal investigation be made by the World Bank, that wrongdoers be held accountable and that corrective action be taken to redress harms inflicted upon former and current staff members.’
Ironically, rather than giving the aggrieved staff legal remedy, the Bank’s justice system pushed the ball back to the Bank. The Bank ignored the recommendations and closed the case. The staff who filed complaints with the Tribunal was pushed out of the Bank in retaliation. The same thing happened in 2008. The former HR vice president (HRSVP) was strongly advised by the Bank’s Appeals Committee chaired by the current vice president for the MENA region to give another aggrieved staff an administrative relief, noting what the Bank has done to the staff could not be explained by “business reason.” The Appeals Committee chose to avoid ruling against the Bank officially, deciding instead to get the aggrieved staff remedy outside of the justice system. The HRSVP ignored the recommendation.

The actions of the MENA and HRS vice presidents provide a glimpse of what has sustained racial discrimination for decades. The MENA VP’s first priority was to protect the image and reputation of the institution whilst only as a secondary matter trying to secure justice for the aggrieved staff through the ‘back door.’ The former HRSVP (Currently VP for the Latin America and the Caribbean region) has it within his power to confer ‘de minimus’ justice. He chose to deny the staff even watered-down justice and told him to take his case to the Tribunal, knowing full well that the Tribunal serves the Bank as a judicial black hole where claims of racial discrimination are seized and silenced with statutory finality.

There is no justice without accountability, and there is no accountability without redress. Justice for Blacks proposes three critical steps to ensure that (i) accountability is established, (ii) a fair and equitable working environment is put in place, and (iii) institutional safeguards are built to set up a credible justice system.

1. Establishing Accountability - Obviously, there cannot be racial discrimination without racist managers. Just as obviously, systemic racial discrimination cannot persist for several decades without an institutional culture that fosters it. For decades, Blacks have been made to suffer gross injustice, while the Bank’s management painted a rosy picture to the outside world. For example, in a recent letter (12/19/2012) addressed to Senator Barbara Mikulski, the current HRSVP wrote: (i) ‘Every staff member of the Bank Group should expect to be treated with dignity’; (ii) The Bank has ‘no tolerance for discrimination of any kind’ and (iii) staff have access to an Administrative Tribunal that is ‘independent and impartial.’

The HRSVP’s assertions stand in stark contrast with several World Bank and the Staff Association reports. For example, in 2005, the Staff Association (SA) wrote to the Board of Directors to end the segregation (‘ghettoization’) of Blacks in the Africa region. In the same year, the SA noted (i) ‘The status of racial discrimination in the Bank is very bad’; and (ii) ‘there is lack of reliable mechanisms to hold perpetrators of racism accountable.’ In 2010, after extensively reviewing the Tribunal’s ruling on a racial discrimination case, the US Treasury Department, the US Executive Director to the World Bank and the GAP suggested introducing external arbitration based on the Lugar-Leahy Amendment (2005). In 2012 the US Congress passed the Consolidated Appropriations Act requiring that World Bank staff have access to independent adjudicative bodies.

Justice demands that the Bank Group owns its past and makes a clean break from it, not try to cover it up with false claims and public relations gimmicks. This should start with an official acknowledgment of the longstanding problem as a human rights violation. The fact that there are several internal reports establishing systemic discrimination over a span of several decades without accountability and redress demands a public acknowledgment, if not apology, by the President of the World Bank.

2. Establishing a High-Level External Commission to Review Past Injustice and Propose Remedies – The above-noted HRSVP’s ludicrous assertions provide a compelling reason why an external commission is needed. The Commission should be composed of three to five acknowledged experts in human and civil rights with no past or current ties to the World Bank. Its chair and members should be nominated by a team consisting of the World Bank African American, African and Caribbean Associations, Justice for Blacks, the Staff Association and appointed by the World Bank President. The Commission’s report should be publicly released to establish transparency and accountability. Previous reports commissioned by the Bank have been kept confidential because of public relations concerns.

Two important areas need the Commission’s particular attention. First, several World Bank studies have found blacks are recruited at lower grade than comparably qualified staff and are paid a significantly lower average salaries and kept in lower grades. For example, the aforementioned 1998 and 2003 World Bank reports found ‘the gap in salary between blacks and non-blacks was entirely attributable to differences in race.’ This affects not only current salary levels, but also pensions and other benefits. Justice demands closing the racial gaps in pay and grade differentials.

Second, Blacks represent the only group that has been denied justice by the World Bank Tribunal. A 2009 report by the GAP found, for example, that (i) the Tribunal has rejected all racial discrimination claims filed by Black complainants, and (ii) the data available seems to suggest that ‘complainants of other races have better prospects for compensation awards.’ Justice for Blacks has complied compelling evidence that reminiscent of Jim Crow era courts of America’s distant past, the World Bank Tribunal does not consider evidence submitted by Black complainants of racial injustice. The Commission should be mandated to review all racial discrimination cases that the Tribunal summarily dismissed to determine if the denial of justice constitutes systemic violation of human rights. If so, propose corrective actions to redress those who have been denied due process granted them by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments.

3. Providing Access to a Binding External Arbitration – Several World Bank commissioned reports have proposed introducing external arbitration in the Bank’s justice system. A 1998 report by the World Bank Team for Racial Equality established: ‘Many black staff are reluctant to file grievances of racial discrimination through the existing mechanisms. Therefore it is recommended that the Bank establish a different mechanism for investigating and recommending dispositions for resolving specific allegations of racial discrimination and improving existing procedures.’ In 2009, the SA recommended ‘Accountability under the Conflict Resolution System can be achieved by introducing independent arbitrators with binding authority’ . But the Bank has refused to consider it.

Confining victims of discrimination to the widely discredited Tribunal would be tantamount to saying ‘Blacks Need Not Apply for Justice.’ It warrants emphasis that introducing external arbitration neither negates the Tribunal’s existence nor infringes on the Bank’s immunity from US laws. Rather, it provides value added by augmenting the justice system with an alternative.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

The issue of systemic racial discrimination was formally discussed by the World Bank Board of Governors in 1979 at the Bank’s Annual meeting in Belgrade. Thirty-four years later, the problem remains systemic and protracted. When it comes to addressing racial discrimination, the Bank’s history is replete with debris of failed band-aid therapies and aborted reforms. In contrast, gender discrimination was officially discussed at the Board level in 1992. Since then, the institution has made significant strides to rectify the problem. Half of the Bank’s top managers are female. It is time that the Bank treats its Black employees with the same rights it accords other staff members.

*Justice for Blacks

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