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Are international organizations like the Bank for International Settlements unable to die?

International Organizations seem to be immortal or at least long-lived. In this paper several factors which may be responsible for this fact are put forward and then analyzed by studying the empirical case of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), which has now survived for seventy-eight years all threats to its existence. This is the more surprising since it was heavily attacked by the government of the most powerful country of the world, the USA for some years. This country demanded the dissolution of the BIS at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944 as a precondition for allowing nations to join the planned International Monetary Fund. Before this the Bank was also able to master the crisis resulting from the demise of the gold (exchange) standard and the end of the German reparation payments agreed on in the Dawes and Young Plans, both consequences of the Great Depression. The Bank even survived the events of the Second World War threatening it, and reacted creatively to the crisis posed by the founding of the European Monetary Union. It is shown that all suspected factors favoring the survival of international organizations were present in the case of the BIS.

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1. Bosshard (1944), my translation from the German as of all later documents of the SNB.

2. Minutes of the meetings of the Directorate of the Swiss National Bank No. 829, pp.923–924, July 27, 1944.

3. Minutes of the Bankausschuss, August 31/September 1, 1944, pp. 287–289.

4. Personal remark to the author in Summer 2007.

5. Toniolo (2005), p. 39. Toniolo provides a detailed discussion of these events and of the creation of the BIS.

6. Toniolo (2005), p. 30.

7. Sachverständigenausschuss (1929).

8. Minutes of the Directorate of the Swiss National Bank [subsequently just “Minutes”], Nos. 903, p.1078, of October 26/27 1939 and 91, p. 108 of 5/6 February 1942.

9. Minutes, No. 18, January 12, 1940.

10. Minutes of the Bankausschuss SNB, August 31/September 1, pp. 288.

11. Minutes, Nos. 892, July 24/25 and 1017, August 15, 1946. The Directorate of the SNB had advised the BIS not to do so, presumably because it wanted to prevent a precedent which might hurt the Bank. See also Toniolo (2005), p. 278.

12. Minutes, No. 817, June 19, 1947.

13. Toniolo (2005), p. 299.

14. Kaplan and Schleiminger (1989), p. 24.

15. Kaplan and Schleiminger (1989), pp. 38, 41 and 45. It is interesting that the Swiss delegation was instructed to support those countries who wanted to design the BIS and not a new institution to handle the payments system. Bernholz (2007), p.137.

16. Minutes, No. 272, March 16, 1950, p. 356.

17. Minutes, No. 618, May 8, 1947.

18. Minutes, No. 1604, December 11, 1947, pp. 2285–86.

19. Minutes, No. 777, July 12, 1951, p. 884.

20. Reprinted in Toniolo (2005), p. 638.

21. BIS: Monthly Reports for ends of years.

22. Toniolo (2005), p. 540 f., note 130.

23. BIS (1934), p. 47.

24. For a fuller description see Toniolo (2005), PP. 185–189.

25. Auboin (1955), p. 14.

26. Quoted from Toniolo (2005), p. 194. The short sketch of these activities of the BIS is mainly based on Toniolo, pp. 191–195.

27. Minutes, No. 18, 12.1.1940.

28. This paragraph is based on Toniolo (2005), pp. 213 f.

29. Toniolo (2005), pp. 224–229.

30. Minutes of the Bankausschuss of the SNB, No. 14, October 1, 1942,

31. Minutes of the Bankausschuss of the SNB, No. 15, October 29, 1942.

32. Auboin (1955), p.14.

33. Auboin (1955), p. 16.

34. Toniolo (2005), p. 248.

35. Auboin (1955), p. 16.

36. D’Aroma (1980), p. 6., my translation from the French.

37. Iklé, Max (Undated, after 1979): Erinnerungen. Zweiter Teil: Aus dem Berufsleben. Archive of the SNB, pp. 254 f.

38. Toniolo (2005), p. 359.

39. Minutes No. 513, June 13, 1974.

40. Minutes No. 1249, December 5, 1974.

41. Bernholz (1999), pp.737–788. See also Toniolo (2005), pp. 437–452.

42. BIS (2006), pp. 213 and 215.

43. BIS (1999).

44. See also the volume presenting the papers of a conference at the occasion of this anniversary: Borio et al. (eds.) (2008).

45. For a detailed description of the astonishing range of the BIS’s activities see Bernholz (2000).

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1. Center for Economics and Business (WWZ), University of Basel, CH-4003, Basel, Switzerland

   Peter Bernholz

Correspondence to Peter Bernholz.

Bernholz, P. Are international organizations like the Bank for International Settlements unable to die?. Rev Int Organ 4, 361–381 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11558-009-9062-9

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• Received: 10 March 2009

• Revised: 18 June 2009

• Accepted: 21 June 2009

• Published: 28 July 2009

• Issue Date: December 2009

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11558-009-9062-9

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