Composition of the International Monetary Fund Administrative Tribunal

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 Chile and Lebanon, has served as a Judge of the International Monetary Fund Administrative Tribunal since 2019 and as President of the Tribunal since January 2022. He is the Chief Executive Officer of the Bahrain Chamber for Dispute Resolution, a former Director of the Dubai International Arbitration Centre, a former Deputy Secretary-General (and Acting Secretary-General) of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, and a former Executive Secretary of the World Bank Administrative Tribunal. He regularly serves as tribunal chair or co-arbitrator in arbitrations relating to international commerce, construction, investment and public international law conducted in Arabic, English and French. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Cairo Regional Centre for International Commercial Arbitration, a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, a member of the ICSID Panel of Arbitrators, a Vice-President of the International Federation of Commercial Arbitration Institutions, and a former Court member at the London Court of International Arbitration. He has taught at the University of Miami School of Law, Paris 1 University (Panthéon-Sorbonne), the Saint-Joseph University Faculties of Law in Beirut and Dubai, the University of Chile and Heidelberg in Santiago, Chile, The Hague Academy of International Law and the Paris International Academy for Arbitration Law. 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.

Judges

Edith Brown Weiss, a national of the United States, has served as a Judge of the International Monetary Fund Administrative Tribunal since 2012. She was Chairperson of the World Bank Inspection Panel, at the level of World Bank Vice President, 2003-2007, and a member 2002-2007. In 2014, she was appointed a Judge on the Administrative Tribunal of the Inter-American Development Bank for six years and served as the Vice President and the President of the Tribunal. She is University Professor Emerita at Georgetown University and Francis Cabell Brown Professor of International Law Emerita at Georgetown Law. She served as President of the American Society of International Law (ASIL) 1994-1996, special legal adviser to the North American Commission on Environmental Cooperation, 1996-2002, Associate General Counsel for International Law at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and director, trustee, or adviser for international institutions, including the Japanese Institute for Global Environmental Strategies and the United Nations University. She is an Honorary Member of the Indian Society of International Law. Her numerous publications address compliance, dispute settlement, and accountability. She serves on many international editorial boards, including the American Journal of International Law, Journal of International Economic Law and the Max Planck Encyclopedia of International Procedural Law and was a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law. In 2017 she delivered the General Course on Public International Law at The Hague Academy of International Law. She has received many international awards for her work, including the ASIL Manley O. Hudson Medal, the American Bar Association Louis B. Sohn Award for lifetime achievement in international law, and a doctorate honoris causa from Heidelberg University, Germany, and Chicago-Kent College of Law, USA.

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 21^st 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.

Registrar

Celia Goldman, a national of the United States, has served as Registrar & Senior Legal Advisor of the International Monetary Fund Administrative Tribunal since 2008 (and Registrar since 2000), having previously served as counsel and acting Registrar of the Tribunal. Since 2014, she has been a Judge of the European Stability Mechanism Administrative Tribunal (ESMAT). Ms. Goldman has been a contributor to numerous symposia on the law of the international civil service. She serves as Member of the Scientific Advisory Board, Max Planck Encyclopedia of International Procedural Law (EiPro), and Member of the Advisory Board, Oxford International Organizations (OXIO). She is a former co-chair of the American Society of International Law’s Interest Group on International Courts and Tribunals. Ms. Goldman is a graduate of the Yale Law School, where she was a Senior Editor of the Yale Law Journal. She served as Law Clerk to the Honorable Theodore R. Newman, Jr. of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and practiced employment law in Washington, D.C. before joining the Registry of the Tribunal.

Former Presidents

Catherine M. O'Regan, President 2011 - 2021, Judge 2010 – 2011.

Stephen M. Schwebel, 1994 – 2010.

Former Judges

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 Registrar

Philine R. Lachman, 1994 – 1999.