Some Issues Regarding IMF and Third World Relations

The aim of this work is to examine the evolving monetary relations and its impact on the developing countries, and to question the validity of any legal theory in this context. Chapter 1 deals with the management of the monetary relations from the establishment of the Bretton Woods system to the present. It shows that Bretton Woods was the institutionalisation of liberal economic theory fostered by the developed countries. The rules were mainly based along oligarchic principles within the developed capital market countries, consequently such rules were unsuited to the poor underdeveloped countries' economic situation. Chapter 2 focuses on the decision-making processes of the IMF which excludes any effective participation by developing countries. Chapter 3 examines the IMF power to adjust payments imbalances and highlights the asymmetrical aspect of its operations with special reference to its conditionality and its economic and legal foundations. Chapter 4 examines the alternatives for change within the IMF especially regarding its policies and decision-making functions which Third World countries believe operate to their disadvantage. By way of conclusion it is being strongly argued that only a normative approach can participate to the development of legal theory regarding the international monetary relations. It is inevitable that economic order requires legal order