Anna Ramos (Public International Law LLM 2012)
The following is written by Anna Ramos, who works as Counsel at the World Bank Sanctions Board Secretariat:
When you think about the World Bank, what are the first thoughts in your head? Perhaps images of bridges being constructed, water flowing from pumps, or streetlamps illuminating narrow roads? Words like poverty, development, or aid? Whatever your initial thoughts are, I would wager that no one thought about anticorruption. This is precisely my practice at the Bank.
I joined the World Bank Group Sanctions Board Secretariat in 2015. The Sanctions Board is the second tier in the Bank’s independent adjudicative system that decides on fraud, corruption, collusion, coercion, or obstruction allegations in Bank-financed projects. To better illustrate its work, let me give you a hypothetical. The Bank finances the creation of public hospitals in one of its member countries. A contractor bidding for the project bribes a public official into choosing it over more qualified firms. As the contractor uses funds allocated to purchase materials and equipment to pay the public official, it uses cheaper, substandard counterparts to build the hospital. The investigative arm of the Bank receives a tip about the alleged fraud and corruption, investigates the case, and decides to bring it to the first tier of the Bank’s adjudicative sanctions system. The first tier finds sufficient evidence of misconduct and recommends a sanction of debarment for three years (i.e., the contractor is blacklisted from receiving future projects financed by the Bank). The contractor goes to the Sanctions Board denying the allegations on the ground that it was coerced by the public official to pay the bribes and requesting to shorten the debarment because it cooperated fully with the Bank’s investigation. The Sanctions Board looks at the case anew (de novo review), ascertains liability and, if it so finds, imposes a sanction. At the heart of this process is one goal: to ensure that Bank funds are used for their intended purposes.
My role in this system is assisting the seven Sanctions Board Members—respected international judges, arbitrators, development experts—by providing them with legal research and writing that aid in the efficient disposition of cases. You can think of my work as similar to a judicial clerkship. And in case you are wondering how I got here, Queen Mary is very much to blame!
I went to Queen Mary in 2012 for my LLM in Public International Law. I wanted to do international criminal law, but the first two weeks of module shopping pulled me towards two unexpected courses: Professor Takis Tridimas’ Judicial Protection in the EU and Dr. Gabriel Gari’s Regulation of International Trade. Even as a Philippine-trained lawyer far removed from EU practice, the substance of Judicial Protection and Prof. Tridimas’ intellectual challenges not only deepened my interest in judicial review, but also nurtured a desire to do adjudicative work.
Trade, meanwhile, introduced an area of law I never even considered. More importantly, I owe Dr. Gari my Volterra Fietta internship and job as Dispute Settlement Lawyer at the World Trade Organization Appellate Body Secretariat. I would not have known of and obtained these opportunities if it were not for his encouragement, training, and references. My former job at the WTO, in turn, landed me my role here at the Bank. Ten years on, I still think of my first two weeks at Queen Mary, forever grateful of the doors that this institution has opened for me.