ABSTRACT
This chapter considers changes in the Bretton Woods institutions, particularly the World Bank, as they have responded to rising concern about environmental matters. The World Bank and the affiliated international financial institutions known as the Bretton Woods group have been accused of bankrolling ecological and economic disaster in the developing world, by promoting development projects that have denuded forests, depleted soils, and increased dependence on unsuitable energy sources. United Nations Conference on Environment and Development challenges international law to establish the process whereby the conflicting interests raised by environment and development concerns and the struggles between the UN and the Bretton Woods systems of governance, can be confronted and resolved. The United Nations and its affiliated agencies have since provided a political forum for pursuing the common good by working to avoid and settle armed conflicts, alleviate sickness and hunger, protect human rights and, with increasing intensity of effort, to protect the environment.
