The World Bank Administrative Tribunal, established in 1980, decides on applications submitted by staff members alleging non-observance of their contracts of employment or terms of appointment. It is the only judicial body and the final stop in the Bank’s internal justice system. The Tribunal is composed of seven judges of different nationalities.

The terms of three Tribunal judges (i.e., Judges Stephen M. Schwebel (United States), Zia Mody (India), and Francis M. Ssekandi (Uganda)) expired on 30 June 2012. Article IV(2) of the Statute of the Tribunal provides that “the members of the Tribunal shall be appointed by the Executive Directors of the Bank from a list of candidates nominated by the President of the Bank after appropriate consultation. For this purpose, the President shall appoint an advisory committee composed of four members with relevant experience”.

In accordance with the Statute and a 4 June 2001 memorandum from the President of the Bank to the Executive Directors on the topic of “Enhancing the Bank’s Administrative Tribunal”, an advisory committee was set up in May 2012, and concluded its work early this year. The Advisory Committee was composed as follows:
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• Ms. Anne-Marie Leroy, Senior Vice President and Bank Group General Counsel;
• Ms. Rachel McColgan, Chair of the World Bank Group Staff Association;
• Mr. Hasan Tuluy, Vice President of LCRVP; and
• Professor Robert Gorman, a founding member of the Tribunal who served for 26 years and was its President, and was also former President of the Administrative Tribunals of the Inter-American and Asian Development Banks. (Professor Gorman replaced Professor Michael Reisman, Professor of International Law at Yale University, who had stepped down from the Committee in June 2012.)

As part of its work, the Committee sought the views of internal stakeholders and external sources, and also solicited from them the names of potential candidates. After extensive deliberations, the Committee submitted to the President of the Bank a report on its work setting out its findings and recommendations. The President of the Bank nominated three of the recommended candidates for appointment to the Tribunal. The candidates nominated by the President were appointed by the Executive Directors in March 2013. They are:

• Andrew Burgess (Barbados) is a Justice of Appeal in the Court of Appeal of Barbados. From 2004 to 2010, he was a judge of the Inter-American Development Administrative Tribunal where he served as its Vice-President in 2007 and 2009 and its President in 2009-2010. Prior to this he served as Dean of the Faculty of Law of the University of the West Indies from 1989-1992 and 1995-2004; as a Senator in the Senate and as a Councillor in the Council of that University; as a Professor of Corporate and Commercial Law; as a member of the Barbados Judicial Council, as a member of the Tax Appeal Tribunal in Barbados and served as Chairman of a number of National and Regional Committees. He is the author of two books on company law in the Commonwealth Caribbean and has published widely on a range of legal issues especially in corporate and commercial jurisprudence.
• Abdul G. Koroma (Sierra Leone) was a member of the International Court of Justice from 1994 until 2012, and the United Nations International Law Commission from 1982 until 1994. He was Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Sierra Leone to the United Nations, the European Economic Community and the Organization of African Unity (OAU), and has had extensive experience as a member of various legal committees in the United Nations, the OAU and the African Union. Since 2006, he has been a member of the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations of the International Labour Office in Geneva, Switzerland. He is also Chairman of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Mission to Fiji to examine labour disputes between the Government of Fiji and trade unions in light of the applicable ILO Conventions and Recommendations. He is also Chairman of the African Union’s Panel of Experts on the settlement of territorial and boundary disputes between the Republic of Sudan and the Republic of Southern Sudan.
• Stephen M. Schwebel (United States) is currently the President of the Tribunal, elected to that position by the other members of the Tribunal pursuant to Article VI of the Statute of the Tribunal. He was the President of the International Monetary Fund Administrative Tribunal from its inception in 1993 until 2010. He has presided over several important international arbitration tribunals. From 1981 to 2000, Judge Schwebel was a member of the International Court of Justice, serving as its Vice President from 1994 to 1997, and as its President from 1997 to 2000. He served as Deputy Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State, and as Burling Professor of Law at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. He is a former Executive Vice President and Director of the American Society of International Law, and a former member of the United Nations International Law Commission.