(a) “The Bretton Woods Conference, 1944 adopted the statutes of two institutions to promote New International Economic Order for…

How this answer will be evaluated

Evaluation rubric

Each sub-part is marked on its own, against the marks and word limit printed on the paper.

1. (a) 'Discuss the above statement in terms of the International Forum' requires the candidate to identify the Bretton Woods Conference and the two institutions whose Articles of Agreement it adopted — the IMF and the IBRD — to describe their constitutions, purposes and machinery, and then to engage critically with the statement's link to the New International Economic Order, which was in fact a later developing-country movement partly directed against the Bretton Woods order. 20 marks

   Must cover

   • Bretton Woods Conference, July 1944; 44 nations; India a founding member
   • IMF — purposes, par value system to floating rates, quotas and weighted voting, SDR, surveillance
   • IBRD and the World Bank Group; long-term development finance
   • Failed ITO; GATT 1947 as the interim trade regime; WTO from 1 January 1995
   • NIEO — GA Resolutions 3201 and 3202 (S-VI), 1974; Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States, 1974
   • Critical point: the NIEO postdated and largely challenged the Bretton Woods order

   Loses marks

   • Naming the WTO as one of the two institutions created at Bretton Woods; the two were the IMF and the IBRD, and the trade pillar failed and was replaced by GATT.
   • Accepting the question's premise uncritically and asserting that Bretton Woods created the New International Economic Order; the NIEO was a 1974 General Assembly project of the developing world, largely directed against the existing order.
   • Confusing the IBRD with the World Bank Group as a whole, or attributing IDA's concessional lending to the IBRD.
   • Getting the year wrong — the Conference was in July 1944 and the Articles entered into force in December 1945.
   • Describing the IMF as a development lender; it provides balance-of-payments support, while long-term development finance is the Bank's function.
   • Writing an economics essay with no institutional or legal detail — no Articles, no resolutions, no dates.

   Earns more

   • Identifies the Conference precisely: the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference held at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, from 1 to 22 July 1944, attended by delegates of forty-four nations including India, which was among the founding members; the competing blueprints of John Maynard Keynes for the United Kingdom, proposing an International Clearing Union with a unit of account, and of Harry Dexter White for the United States, the latter substantially prevailing; and the adoption of the Articles of Agreement of two institutions, which entered into force on 27 December 1945.
   • Completes the architecture with the trade pillar: the third leg contemplated at Bretton Woods was an International Trade Organization, whose Havana Charter of 1948 was never brought into force because the United States Congress did not approve it, so that the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1947, applied provisionally from 1948, served as the trade regime until the Marrakesh Agreement of 15 April 1994 established the World Trade Organization with effect from 1 January 1995 — so the 'international forum' for economic cooperation rests on three institutions, two born at Bretton Woods and one improvised.
   • Adds a contemporary assessment: the eclipse of the NIEO in the 1980s debt crisis and the rise of the policy prescriptions labelled the Washington Consensus; continuing criticism of quota-based weighted voting and of the under-representation of emerging economies despite the quota reforms agreed in 2010 and effective in 2016; the HIPC initiative, the Millennium Development Goals and the Sustainable Development Goals with the Addis Ababa Action Agenda of 2015; and the emergence of alternative institutions, notably the New Development Bank established by the BRICS under the Fortaleza Agreement of 2014 and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank which began operations in 2016, as a partial realisation of NIEO aspirations by institutional competition rather than by reform of Bretton Woods.

   Extra mark

   • Keynes and White plans; Articles of Agreement in force 27 December 1945
   • Permanent sovereignty over natural resources — GA Resolution 1803 (XVII), 1962; UNCTAD (1964), G-77, NAM
   • IFC, IDA, ICSID and MIGA
   • Quota reforms (agreed 2010, effective 2016); New Development Bank (2014); AIIB (2016)
2. (b) 'Discuss briefly the pre and post developments' of the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 requires a chronological account in two halves: the instruments and institutions that led up to Kyoto (Stockholm, Brundtland, the ozone regime, IPCC, Rio and the UNFCCC), the content of the Protocol itself, and the developments after it (Marrakesh, entry into force, Doha Amendment, Paris and after), with the principles of international environmental law running through. 15 marks

   Must cover

   • Stockholm Conference 1972, Principle 21 and UNEP
   • Brundtland Report (1987); Montreal Protocol (1987); IPCC (1988)
   • Rio 1992: UNFCCC (in force 1994) and CBDR; Annex I / non-Annex I
   • Kyoto Protocol, 11 December 1997: Annex B aggregate cut of at least 5% below 1990 in 2008-2012; six gases; no targets for developing countries
   • Mechanisms: Joint Implementation (Article 6), CDM (Article 12), Emissions Trading (Article 17)
   • Post-Kyoto: US repudiation (2001), entry into force 16 February 2005, Doha Amendment (2012)
   • Paris Agreement (2015; in force 2016): NDCs, well below 2 degrees

   Loses marks

   • Giving the Kyoto reduction target as five per cent for all parties; the commitment was an aggregate of at least five per cent below 1990 levels for Annex B parties, with differentiated individual targets and no quantified target for developing countries.
   • Saying the Protocol entered into force in 1997 or 2005 without distinguishing adoption from entry into force — it was adopted on 11 December 1997 and entered into force on 16 February 2005.
   • Stating that the United States never signed the Protocol; it signed but did not ratify and repudiated it in 2001.
   • Confusing the UNFCCC with the Kyoto Protocol, or the Kyoto mechanisms with the Paris Article 6 mechanisms.
   • Treating only the 'post' half and ignoring the 'pre' half, or vice versa; the question asks for both.
   • Attributing binding emission targets to the Paris Agreement; Paris makes the process binding but the contributions are nationally determined.

   Earns more

   • Covers the pre-Kyoto foundations: the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment at Stockholm in June 1972, with its Declaration of twenty-six principles — Principle 21 affirming the sovereign right of States to exploit their own resources and their responsibility to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other States or of areas beyond national jurisdiction — and the creation of the United Nations Environment Programme later that year; the Brundtland Commission report Our Common Future (1987) which popularised sustainable development; the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer, 1985 and the Montreal Protocol, 1987, which supplied the model of differentiated commitments and a multilateral fund; and the establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change by WMO and UNEP in 1988, whose First Assessment Report of 1990 triggered negotiations.
   • Covers the post-Kyoto developments to 2012: the Buenos Aires Plan of Action (1998); the collapse of the sixth Conference of the Parties at The Hague in 2000; the repudiation of the Protocol by the United States in 2001; the Bonn Agreements and the Marrakesh Accords of 2001, which completed the operational rulebook; ratification by the Russian Federation, which brought the Protocol into force on 16 February 2005; the Bali Action Plan (2007); the Copenhagen Accord (2009), which was only taken note of but introduced the two-degree goal and the pledge of one hundred billion dollars a year by 2020; the Cancun Agreements (2010) establishing the Green Climate Fund; the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (2011); and the Doha Amendment of 8 December 2012 creating a second commitment period from 2013 to 2020, which Canada, Japan, Russia and New Zealand did not join and which entered into force only at the very end of 2020, Canada having withdrawn from the Protocol with effect from December 2012.

   Extra mark

   • Berlin Mandate (1995); Rio Declaration Principles 7, 15 and 16
   • Marrakesh Accords (2001); Bali (2007), Copenhagen (2009), Cancun (2010), Durban (2011)
   • COP28 global stocktake (2023); COP29 finance goal (2024); India's updated NDC and 2070 net-zero target
3. (c) Two limbs: explain what human rights mean and their sources in international law; and then discuss, with specificity, the procedures available for enforcing an individual's human rights — the Charter-based machinery, the treaty-body machinery, the regional courts, and individual criminal responsibility — together with the limitations of each. 15 marks

   Must cover

   • Definition and characteristics of human rights; three generations
   • Sources: UN Charter Articles 1(3), 55 and 56; UDHR (1948); ICCPR and ICESCR (1966)
   • Charter-based machinery: Human Rights Council, UPR, special procedures, complaint procedure; OHCHR
   • Treaty bodies: State reports, inter-State and individual communications (Optional Protocol), exhaustion of local remedies
   • Regional systems: European, Inter-American and African courts; no Asian court
   • Individual criminal responsibility: ICC (Rome Statute 1998/2002), ICTY, ICTR
   • Limitations: consent, reservations, non-binding views; no individual standing before the ICJ

   Loses marks

   • Spending most of the answer on the meaning of human rights and treating enforcement in two lines, although the second limb is the substance of the question.
   • Saying the UDHR is a binding treaty, or that its provisions are directly enforceable; it is a declaration, though much of it is now regarded as customary.
   • Confusing the Human Rights Council, a Charter body of States, with the Human Rights Committee, the treaty body of independent experts under the ICCPR — this is the most common error on this question.
   • Claiming that an individual may petition the International Court of Justice; only States may be parties to contentious cases before the ICJ (Article 34(1) of its Statute).
   • Stating that India accepts individual complaints under the ICCPR Optional Protocol; India is not a party to it.
   • Omitting the limitations, so the account reads as if enforcement were effective and automatic.

   Earns more

   • Describes regional enforcement, which is where genuinely judicial remedies exist: the European Convention on Human Rights, 1950, with the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg, individual application under Article 34 having become compulsory after Protocol No. 11 in 1998, and execution of judgments supervised by the Committee of Ministers under Article 46; the American Convention on Human Rights, 1969, with the Inter-American Commission and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Velasquez Rodriguez v. Honduras, 1988, establishing the duty of due diligence); and the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, 1981, in force 1986, with the African Commission and the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights. Notes that Asia has no regional human rights court, the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (2009) being non-judicial — a point of direct relevance to India.
   • Completes the picture with criminal and inter-State avenues and the limitations: individual criminal responsibility from the Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals through the ICTY (1993) and ICTR (1994) to the International Criminal Court under the Rome Statute of 17 July 1998, in force 1 July 2002, operating on the principle of complementarity, with referral by a State Party, by the Prosecutor proprio motu or by the Security Council under Article 13(b); inter-State litigation before the International Court of Justice under compromissory clauses such as Article IX of the Genocide Convention, illustrated by Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro (2007) and by The Gambia v. Myanmar (provisional measures 2020; judgment on preliminary objections 2022), where standing was founded on obligations erga omnes partes, the concept of obligations erga omnes having been recognised in Barcelona Traction (1970); universal jurisdiction, subject to the immunity of serving high officials recognised in Arrest Warrant of 11 April 2000 (DRC v. Belgium), ICJ 2002; national human rights institutions under the Paris Principles endorsed by General Assembly Resolution 48/134 of 1993, such as India's National Human Rights Commission under the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993; and domestic incorporation, as in Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan, (1997) 6 SCC 241 and NALSA v. Union of India, (2014) 5 SCC 438. Limitations: consent-based jurisdiction, reservations, non-binding views, politicisation and selectivity, chronic under-resourcing and the implementation gap.

   Extra mark

   • GA Resolution 60/251 (2006); HRC Resolution 5/1 (2007); GA Resolution 48/141 (1993); Vienna Declaration, 1993
   • Velasquez Rodriguez v. Honduras (1988); Protocol No. 11 (1998)
   • The Gambia v. Myanmar (ICJ) — obligations erga omnes partes
   • India: not a party to the First Optional Protocol; NHRC under the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993; Vishaka (1997)

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