Should Decisions of Independent Accountability Mechanisms be Binding?

In this essay, it is argued that IAMs should be empowered with binding decision-making authority to enhance their effectiveness and ensure that justice is served, and remedies delivered. This argument is supported by analyzing the right of access to justice. Further, this essay analyses existing mechanisms with binding decision-making power that have already been created or acknowledged by IFIs; these mechanisms include IFI administrative tribunals for employees, arbitration processes for commercial disputes, integrity related sanctions regimes, and the appeal bodies that hear access to information decisions. The IFIs’ embrace of binding decisions in these contexts demonstrates that nothing prevents IFIs from taking a binding approach if they decide to do so.