Creating New Human Right Standards Specific to IFIs
The Need for New Standards
We are very much in need of new human rights standards that apply directly and particularly to International Financial Institutions, especially multilateral development banks (MDBs). MDBs play a central role in the development and approval of large-scale, mega-development projects that have devastating effects on local communities. New human rights standards that are specifically applicable to MDBs should be drafted to clearly address the specific activities and decisions of MDBs that constitute, result in, or promote violations of human rights. The United Nations could ideally spearhead this endeavor given its unique standard-setting role in the human rights field. New legal standards would help to discourage financing of projects which are likely to involve violations of human rights, including environmental destruction. Unlike current safeguard policies that serve as internal regulations at the banks—and which MDBs can apply or ignore at will—legal standards set by the United Nations would create obligations of a legal, binding, and enforceable nature.
New standards should censure any MDB activity which facilitates violations of human rights including, but not restricted to: MDB actions that directly violate human rights; MDB actions that are complicit in state violations of human rights; MDB actions or requirements that cause or force states to violate human rights (e.g. extreme austerity requirements); MDB actions that facilitate or make private violations of human rights possible (e.g. corporate abuse of human rights).
The Process of Developing New Standards
The process for developing international human rights law is relatively well established. In the recent past, standard-setting work began at the level of the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights with the development of a draft set of standards. Although the Human Rights Council has recently replaced the UN Commission on Human Rights, it is likely that the Sub-Commission on Human Rights will continue to be responsible for new standard-setting initiatives within the United Nations. If the Sub-Commission approves a draft set of standards, such as a declaration of principles, the steps that follow would likely entail seeking approval from the new UN Human Rights Council and final approval from the UN General Assembly.
Moving Forward
New human rights standards applicable to MDBs should be universal in nature and scope to ensure that such standards govern all MDB activities. Legal standards set by the United Nations would create obligations of a binding nature. As such, they will help prevent or discourage violations of human rights, including irreversible environmental and social destruction related to MDB activities. The process of considering and drafting such legal standards will likely serve as a catalyst to encourage stricter MDB adherence to policies respecting human rights.
Advocacy for such standards should be based on the lived needs and concerns of the peoples and communities actually affected by MDB activities. Thus the participation of peoples affected by MDB projects should remain central to a standard-setting process. Given that indigenous peoples and other local communities are directly affected by MDB activities, and disproportionately suffer the adverse impacts of those activities, their participation in a new standard making process will be crucial.
NGO Statements and Analysis
An Indian Law Resource Center paper, entitled Principles of International Law for Multilateral Development Banks, provides legal support for the argument that multilateral development banks (MDBs) are legally obligated to promote and respect human rights.
How to Use International Law to Influence MDBs 9 (Indian Law Resource Center –Oct. 2005)
Intervention to the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights (Indian Law Resource Center – Aug. 2005)
News and Articles
World Bank Legal Counsel – Legal Opinion on Human Rights (Jan. 2006)
Case Studies of Harmful IFI-Financed Projects:
Chixoy Dam Legacy Issues Study (Spanish only) (International Rivers Network)
Gambling with Peoples Lives: What the World Bank’s New “High-Risk/High-Reward” Strategy Means for the Poor and the Environment (A report by Environmental Defense, Friends of Earth and International Rivers Network)
Contracting Out of Human Rights: The Chad-Cameroon Pipeline Projects (Amnesty International)
United Nations Documents Related to Human Rights & IFIs
General Comment No. 15 on the Right to Water (Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights 2002)
General Comment No. 18 on the Right to Work (Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights 2005)
Links
Bank Information Center (www.bic.org)
IFIwatchnet (www.ifiwatchnet.org)