The Nation quotes Professor Dodge on the immunity of the World Bank Group

An article in The Nation quotes Professor William S. Dodge on the immunity of the World Bank Group, a question the U.S. Supreme Court will decide later this year. The plaintiffs in the case are farmers and fishermen in India who allege they have been harmed by a power plant financed by the International Finance Corporation (IFC). U.S. law provides that international organizations have the “same immunity” from suit as foreign states. But the lower courts held that the IFC was absolute immune from suit, despite the fact that foreign states are not entitled to absolute immunity today. Dodge joined an amicus brief supporting the plaintiffs in the case.

The Nation asked Dodge about the IFC’s argument that losing its immunity would result in a flood of suits against it. Dodge pointed out that “ExxonMobil has no immunity from suit … and the floodgates haven’t opened against them. They might prefer to be sued less, but being subject to suit doesn’t keep them from running a very profitable business.”

Professor Dodge is Martin Luther King, Jr. professor of Law at UC Davis School of Law. He is an influential international law scholar, who served as Counselor on International Law to the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State from 2011 to 2012 and as co-reporter for the American Law Institute’s Restatement (Fourth) of Foreign Relations Law from 2012 to 2018. Professor Dodge is a co-author of the casebook Transnational Business Problems and a co-editor of International Law in the U.S. Supreme Court: Continuity and Change, which won the American Society of International Law's 2012 certificate of merit. He has authored more than 50 other publications in books and law reviews.