The IMF, The World Bank Group, and the Question of Human Rights explores various issues facing international financial institutions and their obligations to adhere to human rights norms. Bahram Ghazi gets to the heart of the most important issues facing the global community today: namely, how to reconcile globalization and the activities of the World Bank and the IMF with the implementation of international human rights rules. His comprehensive work explains the relation between economy, finance, and investments and their impact on the human rights situation. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the author incorporates historical, political, economic, financial, and institutional dimensions into his analysis. The IMF, The World Bank Group, and the Question of Human Rights is the fourth volume to be published in Transnational’s International Law and Development series, edited by Raj Bhala. Published under the Transnational Publishers imprint.

ÔDr Fujita reminds us of the critically important role that human rights can play. Opening up new perspectives, this book is a major and original contribution to the literature.Õ Ð From the foreword by Paul Hunt ÔSanae FujitaÕs book, The World Bank, Asian Development Bank and Human Rights is a significant scholarly contribution to important issues of global governance in our increasingly interconnected world. The book is an excellent treatment of the emergence of participatory rights and accountability in the context of international finance and international organizations more generally. Particularly valuable is the in-depth treatment of transparency and accountability at the Asian Development Bank, an important and often-overlooked institution critical to international governance.Õ Ð David Hunter, American University Washington College of Law, US The World Bank and the Asian Development Bank are two of the worldÕs major institutions conducting development projects. Both banks recognize the importance of transparency, participation and accountability. Responding to criticisms and calls for reform, they have developed policies that are designed to protect these values for people affected by their projects. This original and timely book examines these policies, including those recently revised, through the prism of human rights, and makes suggestions for further improvement. It also analyses the development of the BanksÕ stance to human rights in general. This unique book contains valuable and deeply insightful information drawn from extensive face-to-face interviews with relevant actors, including key personnel from both banks, consultants to the banks and members of civil society organisations. It expands the scope of research/discussion on human rights obligation of International financial institutions that will prove insightful for both academics and students. Practitioners will gain a great deal from the detail given on the standards of transparency, participation and accountability and their applicability to the day-to-day operations of development institutions.

This book provides innovative thinking from a variety of perspectives on the important human rights, human security, and national security policy issues of today—and how these issues intersect. The issue of human security comes into play in nearly every important policy debate in global politics, and the protection of human rights is now recognized as one of the main functions of any legitimate modern state. How can the international community best ensure that human rights are protected while simultaneously protecting state security? Who should intervene in cases of mass, gross violations, and when are military actions justified? This book seeks to address and explore these difficult and pressing questions by presenting the differing views of commentators from various ends of the spectrum. Human Rights, Human Security, and State Security: The Intersection consists of three volumes, with each focusing primarily on one of the three broad areas while also drawing connections between them. A powerful resource for policy makers and practitioners in national governments, members of international organizations, and scholars, the innovative thinking presented will give readers a deepened understanding of the various international issues and help them to formulate effective policies in today's complex international landscape.

This book documents and analyzes the experiences of the UN's first Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. It highlights the conceptual advances in the legal understanding of the right to food in international human rights law, as well as analyzes key practical challenges through experiences in 11 countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America.

This book focuses on the legal challenges and opportunities for International Financial Institutions in the post-crisis world. It includes contributions from academics, practitioners and Bank staff. The contributions cover a broad array of issues, included governance reform and constitutional framework of IFIs, privileges and immunities, responsibility of international organizations, issues related to fragile and conflict-affected states, climate finance, and the recent financial crisis. The book is organized in three main areas, namely (i) Law of International Organizations: Issues Confronting IFIs; (ii) Legal Obligations and Institutions of Developing Countries: Rethinking Approaches of IFIs; and (iii) International Finance and the Challenges of Regulatory Governance.

Sovereign debt is necessary for the functioning of many modern states, yet its impact on human rights is underexplored in academic literature. This volume provides the reader with a step-by-step analysis of the debt phenomenon and how it affects human rights. Beginning by setting out the historical, political and economic context of sovereign debt, the book goes on to address the human rights dimension of the policies and activities of the three types of sovereign lenders: international financial institutions (IFIs), sovereigns and private lenders. Bantekas and Lumina, along with a team of global experts, establish the link between debt and the manner in which the accumulation of sovereign debt violates human rights, examining some of the conditions imposed by structural adjustment programs on debtor states with a view to servicing their debt. They outline how such conditions have been shown to exacerbate the debt itself at the expense of economic sovereignty, concluding that such measures worsen the borrower's economic situation, and are injurious to the entrenched rights of peoples.

Recent examples such as the cholera outbreak in Haiti demonstrate that individual victims of human rights violations by international organizations are frequently left in the cold. Following an examination of the human rights obligations of international organizations, this book scrutinizes their dispute settlement mechanisms as well as the conflict between their immunities and the right of access to justice before national jurisdictions. It concludes with normative proposals addressed both to international organizations and to national judges confronted with such cases.

This book is open access under a CC BY-NC 2.5 license. This book offers a devastating look at deeply flawed development processes driven by international finance, African governments and the global consulting industry. It examines major river basin development underway in the semi-arid borderlands of Ethiopia, Kenya and South Sudan and its disastrous human rights consequences for a half-million indigenous people. The volume traces the historical origins of Gibe III megadam construction along the Omo River in Ethiopia—in turn, enabling irrigation for commercial-scale agricultural development and causing radical reduction of downstream Omo and (Kenya's) Lake Turkana waters. Presenting case studies of indigenous Dasanech and northernmost Turkana livelihood systems and Gibe III linked impacts on them, the author predicts agropastoral and fishing economic collapse, region-wide hunger with exposure to disease epidemics, irreversible natural resource destruction and cross-border interethnic armed conflict spilling into South Sudan. The book identifies fundamental failings of government and development bank impact assessments, including their distortion or omission of mandated transboundary assessment, cumulative effects of the Gibe III dam and its linked Ethiopia-Kenya energy transmission 'highway' project, key hydrologic and human ecological characteristics, major earthquake threat in the dam region and widespread expropriation and political repression. Violations of internationally recognized human rights, especially by the Ethiopian government but also the Kenyan government, are extensive and on the increase—with collaboration by the development banks, in breach of their own internal operational procedures. A policy crossroads has now emerged. The author presents the alternative to the present looming catastrophe—consideration of development suspension in order to undertake genuinely independent transboundary assessment and a plan for continued development action within a human rights framework—forging a sustainable future for the indigenous peoples now directly threatened and for their respective eastern Africa states. Claudia Carr’s book is a treasure of detailed information gathered over many years concerning river basin development of the Omo River in Ethiopia and its impact on the peoples of the lower Omo Basin and the Lake Turkana region in Kenya. It contains numerous maps, charts, and photographs not previously available to the public. The book is highly critical of the environmental and human rights implications of the Omo River hydropower projects on both the local ethnic communities in Ethiopia and on the downstream Turkana in Kenya. David Shinn Former Ambassador to Ethiopia and to Burkina Faso Adjust Professor of International Affairs, The George Washington University, Washington D.C.

The book analyses how international law addresses interactions between international organizations. In labour governance, these interactions are ubiquitous. They offer each organization an opportunity to promote its model of labour governance, yet simultaneously expose it to adverse influence from others. The book captures this ambivalence and examines the capacity of international law to mitigate it. Based on detailed case studies of mutual influence between the International Labour Organization, the World Bank, and the Council of Europe, the book offers an in-depth analysis of the pertinent law and its key challenges, both at institutional and inter-organizational level. The author envisions a law of inter-organizational interactions as a normative framework structuring interactions and enhancing the effectiveness and legitimacy of multi-institutional governance.

This book provides a comprehensive and analytical overview of human rights law in Africa. It examines the institutions, norms, and processes for human rights realization provided for under the United Nations system, the African Union, and sub-regional economic communitites in Africa, and explores their relationship with the national legal systems of African states. Since the establishment of the African Union in 2001, there has been a proliferation of regional institutions that are relevant to human rights in Africa. These include the Pan African Parliament, the Peace and Security Council, the Economic, Social and Cultural Council and the African Peer Review Mechanism of the New Partnership for Africa's Development. This book discusses the links between these institutions. It further examines the case law stemming from Africa' most important human rights instrument, the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, which entered into force on 21 October 1986. This new edition contains a new chapter on the African Children's Rights Committee as well as full coverage of new developments and instruments, such as the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Convention on Enforced Disappearances, and the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance. Three cross-cutting themes are explored throughout the book: national implementation and enforcement of international human rights law; legal and other forms of integration; and the role of human rights in the eradication of poverty. The book also provides an introduction to the relevant human rights concepts.