IMF Administrative Tribunal: Composition of the IMF Administrative Tribunal
Last Updated: June 24, 2025
The Tribunal is composed of five Judges, including the President. By Statute, they must possess the qualifications required for appointment to high judicial office or be jurisconsults of recognized competence. The Managing Director appoints the Judges following appropriate consultation, including with the Staff Association; appointment of the President is subject to approval by the Executive Board. The Judges serve four-year terms, limited to two reappointments. Decisions in a case are taken by a three-Judge panel composed of the President and two others designated by the President. The Judges are completely independent in the exercise of their duties. They may not have any prior or present employment relationship with the Fund. Nor are they eligible for staff employment following their service with the Tribunal. The Tribunal is assisted by the Registrar and other personnel who, in the exercise of their duties, serve under the authority of the President of the Tribunal. (Statute, Articles VII, VIII, and IX.)
President
Nassib G. Ziadé, a national of Lebanon and Chile, has served as a Judge of the International Monetary Fund Administrative Tribunal since June 2019 and as President of the Tribunal since January 2022. He is the President of the United Nations Appeals Tribunal, a Member of the World Bank Group Sanctions Board, and a Member of the Sanctions Panel of the Geneva-based Global Fund. He has regularly served as tribunal chair or co-arbitrator in arbitrations relating to international commerce, construction, investment and public international law conducted in Arabic, English and French under the rules of the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA), the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), the Cairo Regional Centre for International Commercial Arbitration (CRCICA), the Dubai International Arbitration Centre (DIAC), the Abu Dhabi Commercial Conciliation and Arbitration Center (ADCCAC), the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) and the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (HKIAC), as well as in ad hoc proceedings, including under the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Arbitration Rules. He is the former Chief Executive Officer of the Bahrain Chamber for Dispute Resolution (BCDR), the former Director of DIAC, the former Deputy Secretary-General (and Acting Secretary-General) of ICSID, and the former Executive Secretary of the World Bank Administrative Tribunal. He has been designated as a Member of the PCA and the ICSID Panels of Arbitrators and Conciliators. He is a Vice-Chairman of the Board of Trustees (and a former Vice-Chairman of the Advisory Committee) of CRCICA, a Member of the Board of Trustees of the Lebanese Arbitration and Mediation Center, as well as a former Court Member of LCIA and a former Vice-President of the International Federation of Commercial Arbitration Institutions (IFCAI). He is a Visiting Professor at the University of Miami School of Law and at the Law Faculty of Saint-Joseph University in Lebanon and Dubai. He taught at the University of Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne), the Universities of Chile and Heidelberg in Santiago, Chile and the Paris International Academy for Arbitration Law. In addition, he taught a special course at the Hague Academy of International Law. Further, he is an Associate Member of the Institut de droit international. He has published extensively in the fields of international law and arbitration law. He is the Founder and General Editor of the BCDR International Arbitration Review, a former Editor-in-Chief of the ICSID Review—Foreign Investment Law Journal, and a member of the editorial advisory committees of several law journals. He previously served as a Counsellor and Member of the Executive Committee of the American Society of International Law, and as a Member of the Advisory Committee of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law at the University of Cambridge.
Judges
Deborah Thomas-Felix, a national of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, has served as a Judge of the International Monetary Fund Administrative Tribunal since 2020. She is the President of the Industrial Court of Trinidad and Tobago and currently, she serves as a Member of the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations, having been appointed by the Governing Body of the International Labour Organisation in 2015. The Committee of Experts is an independent body responsible for monitoring the application of international labour standards of Member States. She was appointed a Judge of the United Nations Appeals Tribunal (UNAT) from 2014 - 2019 during which time she served as President and Second Vice-President of UNAT. She is a former Chairman of the Trinidad and Tobago Securities Exchange Commission and a former President of the Family Court of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. She also served as a Magistrate, Senior Magistrate and Deputy Chief Magistrate of the Judiciary of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. She has chaired the first high-level seminar on International Administrative Tribunals at the European Public Law Organisation in Greece and has provided technical assistance and advice to governments in the Caribbean region on employment-related matters, including the government of the British Virgin Islands for the establishment of a Labour Dispute Tribunal, and the government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines for the establishment of the first Family Court in the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States. She is certified in international arbitration in oil and gas cases and has lectured on labour law at institutions. She is author of Labour Law in the Commonwealth Caribbean: The Practice of Good Industrial Relations in the 21st Century and Labour Law and Good Industrial Relations: Progressive Discipline and Maternity Protection in the Workplace. She is among seventy of the most distinguished alumni to be honoured for outstanding leadership in the Caribbean by the University of the West Indies.
Andrew K.C. Nyirenda SC, a national of Malawi, has served as a Judge of the International Monetary Fund Administrative Tribunal since 2022. Prior to his appointment, he has at all times of his career been in the public service. He joined the Ministry of Justice in 1980 as a State Advocate and rose through the positions of Chief State Advocate to being the Director of Public Prosecutions for Malawi. He was appointed Judge of the High Court of Malawi in 1994. In 2008 he rose to the Malawi Supreme Court of Appeal, the highest national court where, in 2012, he was appointed Judge President of the Court. He was eventually elevated to be the Chief Justice of the Republic of Malawi in 2015. He was the Chairperson of the Judicial Service Commission, a body established under the Malawi Constitution that is responsible for appointment of judges, other judicial officers and senior members of staff of the judiciary. He has served as President of the Administrative Tribunal of the African Union from 2010 to 2020. During his service at the Tribunal, he supervised the reactivation of the Tribunal from a 15-year inactivity. From October 2018 to September 2021, he served as Chairperson of the Southern African Chief Justices’ Forum (SACJF), a regional grouping comprising 16 member countries from Southern Africa with a membership of incumbent Chief Justices. As Chairperson of SACJF he presided over the promulgation and adoption of the Lilongwe Principles and Guidelines on the Selection and Appointment of Judicial Officers (“Lilongwe Principles”), which seek to assist jurisdictions in SACJF member countries in developing legislation, policy and practice on the selection and appointment of judicial officers. He has published widely and noteworthy is a book entitled, A Comparative Analysis of the Human Rights Chapter Under the Malawi Constitution in an International Perspective. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Malawi Law Reports.
Maria Vicien Milburn, a national of Argentina and Spain, has served as a Judge of the International Monetary Fund Administrative Tribunal since 2022. She currently serves as a judge and arbitrator in the context of disputes of an international character. She has been a member of the World Bank Sanctions Board since 2019 and appointed its Chair in 2021. She has also been appointed Judge of the Administrative Tribunal of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) (2018); and the Administrative Tribunal of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) (2020). She acts as arbitrator in cases conducted under the auspices of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), and the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA). In 2017, she was designated on the list of Panelists of the Dispute Settlement Body of the World Trade Organization (WTO). She is an observer to UNCITRAL Working Groups II and III on international arbitration, a member of the ICC Arbitration Commission, and an advisor to the Board of the Arbitration Court of Madrid. She served for more than thirty-five years as an international lawyer in the United Nations System, holding such senior roles as General Counsel of UNESCO (2009-2014) and Director and Deputy Director of the General Legal Division of the UN Office of Legal Affairs (1999-2009). In these roles, she oversaw all commercial contracting, directed the conduct of all litigation and arbitration and advised on international treaties and conventions. She also served as Executive Secretary of the UN Administrative Tribunal (1985-1999). Judge Vicien Milburn is a graduate of the University of Buenos Aires Law School and Columbia University. She is admitted to practice law in New York and Buenos Aires. The American Bar Association awarded her the 2013 Mayre Rasmussen Award for the Promotion of Women in International Law.
Kieran Bradley, a national of Ireland and the United Kingdom, has served as a Judge of the International Monetary Fund Administrative Tribunal since 2024. He is a judge, and current Vice President, of the Administrative Tribunal of the Inter-American Development Bank, and a member of the staff Tribunals of the European Stability Mechanism, the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts and the Square Kilometer Array Observatory. He is the Chairperson of several staff appeals and disciplinary boards of international organizations and European Union bodies. He was previously a judge of the European Union Civil Service Tribunal, a judicial advisor and Special Advisor at the European Court of Justice, and a Director in the European Parliament’s Legal Service. He also served as a legal adviser to the Convention and intergovernmental conference which adopted the Constitution for Europe and as a member of the Scientific Committee of the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency. He is a visiting professor at the Catholic University of Portugal and the Autonomous University of Barcelona, an Adjunct Professor at Trinity College Dublin, and a Fellow of the Robert Schuman Institute in Luxembourg. He was the first Distinguished Lecturer in European Union Law at Harvard Law School and has taught and lectured at a wide variety of universities and institutes, primarily in Europe. In recent years, he has been awarded fellowships at the European University Institute and NYU. He is currently a member of the Advisory Council of the Irish Centre for European Law and the Advisory Board of the Common Market Law Review, and serves as the CJEU Correspondent for, and contributes to, Law and Practice of International Courts and Tribunals. He has published extensively, particularly in the field of European Law, and 2016 was awarded a PhD by special regulation by the University of Cambridge.
Registrar
Paul Jean Le Cannu, a national of France, has been the Registrar of the Administrative Tribunal of the International Monetary Fund (the “Tribunal”) since June 2024. Prior to joining the Tribunal’s Registry, Mr. Le Cannu was a Senior Counsel and Team Leader at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID, World Bank Group). As Team Leader, he supervised a daily caseload of around sixty pending arbitrations conducted in English, French and Spanish under the ICSID Arbitration Rules and the Arbitration Rules of the UN Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). Mr. Le Cannu also served as Secretary of Tribunals and Annulment Committees. He has published extensively and is a frequent speaker on international dispute settlement. Before joining ICSID, Mr. Le Cannu was a legal counsel at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, and an associate at Shearman & Sterling LLP in Paris. He holds degrees from King’s College London (LL.B.), the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Maîtrise and DEA), the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po,DiplômeSection Service Public), and the Universitat de València, Spain (Diploma práctico sobre arbitraje interno e internacional). He was admitted to the Paris Bar in 2005.
Former Presidents
Catherine M. O'Regan, President 2011 - 2021, Judge 2010 – 2011.
Stephen M. Schwebel, 1994 – 2010.
Former Judges
Edith Brown Weiss 2012 – 2023.
Andrés Rigo Sureda, 2010 – 2021.
Jan Paulsson, 2011 – 2019.
Francisco Orrego Vicuña, 2012 – 2018.
Nisuke Ando, 1994 – 2011.
Michel Gentot, 1994 – 2011.
Georges Abi-Saab, 1994 – 2009.
Agustín Gordillo, 1994 – 2009.
Former Registrars
Philine R. Lachman, 1994 – 1999.
Celia Goldman, 1999 - 2024.
