THE LEGAL NATURE OF FINANCIAL RELATIONS BETWEEN THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND AND MEMBER STATES
Abstract
The article under studies deals with the issue the International Monetary Fund’s (hereinafter, the IMF) financing mechanisms. Based on the analysis of certain scientific sources on the issue, it identifies a range of drastically different views on the legal nature of the IMF financing peculiarities. To be more specific, the mechanisms of IMF financing are regarded by scholars as: 1) crediting; 2) the absence of crediting relations since there takes place a currency exchange; 3) international agreement; 4) the absence of contractual relations as there is no international agreement between the IMF and the state, which receives financing. In addition, the research under discussion contains a comprehensive analysis of the normative-legal grounds and terms of Fund’s providing financial assistance to the member states. It also illustrates the organizational and legal peculiarities of receiving the foreign currency on the example of Ukraine, as well as points out the basic essence of such normative documents as the Letter on Intentions and the Memorandum on Economic and Financial Policy. The article claims that the IMF financing mechanisms: 1) neither formally nor structurally belong to the system of international agreements. They are rather considered as a peculiar legal mechanism in the form of unilateral decisions on providing funding to a member state; 2)according to their content, do not belong to crediting agreements, but are the purchase and sale of the respective currency (although are functionally similar to crediting agreements). It has been ascertained that despite the absence of a legally valid individual credit loan between the IMF and a member state, the experience of such relationship shows that it does not reduce the likelihood of fulfilling the respective obligations on the part of the member states, due to the following factors: 1) the obligations arising from the financing mechanisms are fulfilled as the ones arising from the IMF Statute; 2) the authority of the IMF as a central institution in the international monetary system; 3) the reputational risks in case the state violates the terms of the financing mechanism.
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