Dorf on Law

Mostly law-related musings by Cornell Professor Michael Dorf and some of his lawyer/professor friends

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Here's a Topic: Discuss

I'm posting from my blackberry today and tomorrow, so I'll keep it short. For today, here's a topic: "If the World Bank fires Paul Wolfowitz, the nepotism and hypocrisy (because he has made anti-corruption measures a priority) will be mostly a pretext. Wolfowitz was unloved from the beginning because of his role in the Iraq war.". Discuss amongst yourselves.

posted by Michael C. Dorf @ 7:06 AM  

3 Comments:

  • At 6:11 PM, Blogger Gamecock said…

    I doubt that Wolfowitz lost the support of the World Bank over the Iraq issue. Much more important is his failure to properly contain his stinky feet in decent socks. I imagine that the staff of the world bank turned against him only because of the noxious stink wafting out of his loafers.

    For more on this, see:

    http://wonkette.com/politics/paul-wolfowitz/paul-wolfowitz-too-busy-ruining-world-to-buy-socks-232624.php

     

  • At 8:30 PM, Blogger Carl said…

    Would his firing be unjustified if it turns out that board of directors were motivated mainly by political animous? Would it not be enough that there was good reason to fire him, even if that reason played only a minor role in the actual decision? I suppose the decision makers could be open to criticism for their deliberative shortcomings, but that's another question. Of course, that might be precisely the question you were posing to begin with. If so, it's really hard to say. Nepotism and cronyism do seem to be a fact of life in international political and economic institutions. If it's not a pretext, it might be a good sign that they're finally starting to take these issues seriously. If it is just a pretext, it would nevertheless set a precedent they would be hard for them to ignore in the future. Assuming Wolfowitz's successor would do at least as good a job as he, it seems to be a net gain however you slice it.

     

  • At 9:03 PM, Blogger Michael C. Dorf said…

    In response to the comments of gamecock and Carl, I just want to be clear that I wasn't making a normative point at all. I'm just genuinely curious about what's going on inside the World Bank. A recent New Yorker profile of Wolfowitz (pre-scandal) noted that there was opposition to him from the beginning because of his role in the Iraq War.

     

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