By Siddharth Akali (Director, Coalition for Human Rights in Development) and Basma Eid (Campaign and Membership Director, ESCR-Net)
In late June, a leaked draft resolution revealed that the Board of Peace – whose executive board includes World Bank president, Ajay Banga – is seeking legal immunity for its members, forces and contractors. This kind of sovereign immunity is straight out of the World Bank’s playbook, which cannot be sued in its countries of operation, and consistently tries to resist accountability. The leaked draft also included a proposal to seize public property in Gaza without offering any compensation, again building on the World Bank’s long legacy of landgrabbing across the Global South.
Little is known about the Board of Peace’s actual implementation plan and whether the leaked draft was discussed or dismissed when representatives recently met in Cyprus. But one thing is clear: behind the pretext of reconstructing Gaza, the Board of Peace – and the complicit, supporting institutions such as the World Bank – are entrenching Israel’s occupation, while eschewing accountability and crushing Palestinians’ right to self-determination.
Banga showed bad judgement by joining the Board of Peace in November, and by continuing to stand by his decision even after Trump threatened to kill an entire civilization in Iran. The World Bank board and general counsel must intervene to rein in him, or risk exposing the Bank to corruption, war crimes and crimes against humanity, at a time when it is already in an accountability crisis.
On June 25, the head of the Bank’s independent watchdog resigned after the board rejected the findings of an investigation documenting the Bank’s fault in Cambodia’s microfinance debt crisis, which resulted in Indigenous Peoples losing their lands, and failed to offer remedy. The World Bank was already under scrutiny, with experts raising serious concerns about prioritizing efficiency over accountability in the recent merger of the institution’s public sector and private sector accountability mechanisms. These recent developments confirm the World Bank cannot be trusted in Gaza.
Amidst the ongoing genocide, that has killed more than 75,000 people so far, the Board of Peace denies Palestinians their rights to self-determination and reparations, and opens the door to further land theft and corporate capture. From its inception, leading voices across Palestinian civil society and the human rights field have publicly rejected the Board of Peace, and condemned the World Bank’s decision to establish the Financial Intermediary Fund for Gaza Reconstruction and Development. In April, almost 200 organizations demanded that the World Bank withdraw. Prominent UN experts have also condemned the Board, calling for a rights-based approach to reconstruction based in reparative justice.
The World Bank has justified its role by relying on the UN Security Council resolution 2803. Let alone that legal experts have said the Security Council resolution violates international law; Trump’s board, and thus Banga’s participation in it, is even violating the text of the Security Council’s resolution. The mandate for the Board of Peace – that the Security Council approved – was limited to Gaza and only until the end of 2027. The Gaza Fund relied on the same time-limited and geographically-limited mandate. However, the foundational charter of the Board of Peace does not even mention Gaza and has no definite time limit. Instead, it lists Donald Trump as Chairman in a personal capacity, empowering him as a final decision-maker with a veto, including on the Board’s terms, scope, and management of resources.
This demonstrates a prioritization of business interests at the expense of the public multilateral system. As reported by the Financial Times, the Board entered into talks with an Emirati state-owned company to develop a free-trade zone in the war-shattered Gaza strip. Other members of the executive board are Trump’s supporter and billionaire Mark Rowan; war profiteer Tony Blair; and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Given Trump’s propensity to use political office for private gain, there is also a high risk of corruption, further jeopardizing the Bank’s reputation.
Meanwhile, Palestinian voices are excluded from the executive board, and are also being actively repressed. Trump’s administration is continuing to ramp up its attack on Palestinian civil society and leading advocates for Palestinian rights, including by sanctioning the International Criminal Court, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Palestine, and several leading Palestinian human rights organisations. Indeed, these actions by Trump and his lackeys are also contrary to the World Bank’s policy on zero tolerance for reprisals.
Additionally, the World Bank’s Articles of Agreement explicitly prohibit the Bank from engaging in political activity. The Bank has often used this as a pretext to avoid implementing international human rights laws. So it’s both hypocritical and contrary to the Bank’s articles for Banga to join a board with several heads of state, making political decisions about the future of Gaza.
The World Bank board allowed the Bank to serve only as a limited trustee of the fund and to be a non-voting observer in the Board of Peace, with no role in decision-making processes. Unfortunately, by joining as a key decision-maker Banga seems to have gone further, making the World Bank culpable in any wrongs and exposing it to tremendous legal risks.
Several major World Bank donor shareholders like France, Germany, the UK and Canada, as well as borrower shareholders like Brazil, India and China have stayed clear of joining the Board of Peace, so it’s unclear why they support the World Bank’s participation. Additionally, the Board of Peace’s financial backers have failed to live up to commitments to deliver funds, and others have clarified they had never made any financial commitments to begin with.
This is the time for middle powers to show that they want to protect a rules-based order that works for the economy, as well as peoples and the planet. As a small step, they must use their role on the World Bank board, to make the Bank withdraw from the misguided Gaza fund, and Banga step down from Trump’s oxymoronic Board of Peace.
