"The departure of Paul D. Wolfowitz as World Bank president is prompting calls around the world to revoke the traditional right of the United States to select the institution's leader.Comment: On the one hand, as an American, I would like to see the process continue by which the United States government picks the head of the World Bank. This would continue to avoid situations such as that where Zimbabwe is chosen by the United Nations body to head the Commission on Sustainable Development, even though its government obviously is currently not sustaining development. It also maintains the influence of the government of the country in which I am a citizen.
As the White House asserted its claim on picking Wolfowitz's successor, aid groups and former bank officials demanded that the next president be selected not in deference to the Bush administration, but on professional merits."
On the other hand, it is hard to argue against transparency and a search for quality for the job. How can the World Bank or other international organizations argue for democratic processes and transparency in government decision making, when not themselves practicing such virtues? Do they themselves not suffer from corruption and nepotism as a result?
The U.S. Constitution and U.S. law creates a set of checks and balances for senior appointments to high level posts in the U.S. government. The President nominates people for the jobs, but the Senate has to confirm the nominee. While the executive branch conducts the search for an appropriate nominee behind closed doors, the Senate will hold open hearings. There is an opportunity for the media to investigate the persons qualifications, and for people with information that militates against the appointment to come forward and be heard. I think the discipline of the process encourages the executive to take care in the nomination process to select an individual who can pass muster.
The informal system by which the United States gets to appoint people to key posts in intergovernmental programs (the World Bank president, the Deputy Director General of the Pan American Health Organization, the head of the World Food Program) does not seem to include any such system of checks and balances.
The result is that an administration that disdains intergovernmental organizations, or one that lacks the ability to identify and appoint the best people, can make very bad choices and there is no appeal to those choices.
The informal system dates back to the creation of the United Nations system, when the United States dominated the world economy and provided most of the resources for the system. It was also a time in which bipartisanship in foreign policy had been required to prosecute World War II. Now that economic power is more evenly spread and the United States is but one of many important donors, and when the Congressional majority is of a different party from the White House and distrusts Bush administration foreign policy, perhaps it is time to revise those old agreements and put in some checks and balances.
It would be possible for the Congress to pass a law requiring Congressional confirmation of U.S. nominations to intergovernmental leadership posts. Alternatively, and perhaps more appropriately, it would be possible to allow various countries to nominate people for these posts and empower their governing bodies to make the selections. JAD
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