World Bank, IMF and Human Rights
2003
Publisher: Wolf Legal Publishers
Authors: Willem van Genugten, Paul Hunt and Susan Mathews (Eds.)
Available: http://www.vidya.nl/
This book discusses the legal status of the World Bank and the IMF, in relation to human rights obligations and to issues in the political and economic field closely related to that. At the end of the second world war the United Nations ‘re-invented’ the human rights and this led tot the adoption of many human rights instruments. The question is to what extent international organizations like the World Bank and the IMF are bound to live up to these human rights obligations. Alfredo Sfeir-Younis states in the first chapter that economists, economics and economic institutions will open up their doors to the human rights-based model when the strength of a political consensus is such that the foundations of values will also change. Mainstreaming human rights into economic development is not a matter of economics but of political economy. Sigrun I.. Skogly addresses the debates of international accountability for human rights in light of the legal setting in which we find the World Bank and the IMF. Skogly discusses briefly the legal foundations and sources for human rights obligations of the two institutions, followed by a more detailed analysis of the content of the human rights obligations. The final section of the analysis will focus on what the institutions’ human rights obligations may amount to and the distinction between institutions’ obligations, states’ obligations and possibly shared obligations. Koen de Freyter gives a review of constitutional documents followed by an analysis of current operational policies. The final section deals with the question of whether any external responsibility arises from World Bank self-regulation on human rights. The conclusion returns to the strengths and weaknesses of self-regulation. Paul Hunt discusses de relations between the UN committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and International Financial Institutions by looking at two particular dimensions of the relationship. Camilo Pérez Bustillo provides an introductory, critical overview of the characteristics and current status of World Bank policy and practises regarding the indigenous peoples of Latin America. Bas de Gaay Fortman reassesses poverty from a human rights perspective. Furthermore he analyzes current strategies for poverty reduction. Finally implications of a rights approach will be examined, first in general and then in regard to the International Financial Institutions in particular. In the final chapter Leif Jensen and Padma M. Karunaratne analyse the World Bank Institute by the question: ‘how do Bank programmes and the thinking of staff stack up against the Bank’s overarching vision and strategy for poverty reduction?’