Resistance Is Futile – You Will Be Assimilated

2006 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 259-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
SUSAN MATHEWS
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
World Bank ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
Light And Shadow ◽  
The International Monetary Fund

Sigrun Skogly, The Human Rights Obligations of the World Bank and the IMF, London, Cavendish Publishing, 2001, ISBN 1859416659, 240 pp., £71.50 (pb).Mac Darrow, Between Light and Shadow:The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and International Human Rights Law, Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2003, ISBN 1841133906, 376 pp., £42.00.00 (hb).Balakrishnan Rajagopal, International Law from Below: Development, Social Movements and Third World Resistance, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003, ISBN 0521016711, 360 pp., £19.99 (pb).

Recognized and Violated by International Law: The Human Rights of the Global Poor

2005 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 717-745 ◽  
Author(s):  
THOMAS POGGE
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
World Bank ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Institutional Structures ◽  
The World

Various human rights are widely recognized in codified and customary international law. These human rights promise all human beings protection against specific severe harms that might be inflicted on them domestically or by foreigners. Yet international law also establishes and maintains institutional structures that greatly contribute to violations of these human rights: fundamental components of international law systematically obstruct the aspirations of poor populations for democratic self-government, civil rights, and minimal economic sufficiency. And central international organizations, such as the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank, are designed so that they systematically contribute to the persistence of severe poverty.

Poverty, Human Rights and the Quest for Sustainable Human Development in Structurally-Adjusted Uganda

2000 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-44
Author(s):  
J. Oloka-Onyango
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Political System ◽  
Economic Adjustment ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Sustainable Human Development ◽  
The World ◽  
Resistance Movement ◽  
The International Monetary Fund

In a bid to address the almost two decades of economic malaise and decline that Uganda had experienced in the 1970s and 1980s, Yoweri Museveni's National Resistance Movement adopted radical measures of economic adjustment under the tutelage of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Although those measures resulted in significant economic growth – in GDP terms – this article argues that they failed to be conscious of basic principles of human rights relating to equality, non-discrimination and participation, and have consequently compounded the situation of poverty in the country. It further argues that the ‘non-party’ political system in existence further undermines the promotion and protection of fundamental human rights.

scholarly journals Human Rights and Financial Institutions: Pinning the Responsibility

2013 ◽  
pp. 116-128
Author(s):  
Nidhi Modani
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Financial Institutions ◽  
Developing Nations ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
International Financial Institutions ◽  
Human Right ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
The International Monetary Fund

This paper is a study of the possible human right obligations of international financial institutions. As financial institutions have not been looked upon as agencies influencing or influenced by human rights, this study becomes significant. The study is limited to international financial institutions, with a special focus on the World Bank (hereinafter ‘Bank’) and the International Monetary Fund (hereinafter ‘Fund’ or ‘IMF’). 2 Further, there is a special focus on developing nations.3

Indigenous Peoples’ Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) and the World Bank Safeguards: Between Norm Emergence and Concept Appropriation

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 223-244
Author(s):  
Stéphanie de Moerloose
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Informed Consent ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Law And Development ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
Development Literature ◽  
Norm Emergence

The question of the consent of indigenous peoples is at least as old as colonization. Indeed, the consent of indigenous peoples was already an issue at the heart of treaty-making between colonial settlers and indigenous peoples. The issue of indigenous peoples’ consent, understood as their Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), has been re-emerging and gaining acceptance internationally in international Human Rights law over the last 30 years. When the new World Bank safeguards were adopted in 2016, one of the most discussed topics during the consultation rounds had been the integration in the safeguards of the concept of the FPIC of indigenous peoples, as it had been notoriously absent from the previous safeguards. Finally, FPIC was made part of the new safeguards. This paper first maps the concept of FPIC under international law from a postcolonial perspective. Then, it attempts to analyze the processes of operationalization of the concept by the World Bank in the new safeguards, drawing on Human Rights and on law and development literature. The paper argues that there is a tension between the re-emergence of FPIC as a customary norm and the fragmentation of the interpretations of the concept of consent by different actors. The operationalization of the concept of FPIC, understood as a negotiated process rather than a process of self-determination, may in fact limit its remedial objective and diminish its quality as a resistance tool.

scholarly journals When Illiberals Embrace Human Rights

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 113 ◽  
pp. 380-384
Author(s):  
Alexandra Huneeus
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Constitutional Law ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Survival Strategy ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
The World ◽  
International Human

A topic motivating much research since 2016 is the turn away from international law caused by a surge in non-liberal and nationalist governments across the world. In the realm of human rights law, scholars have noted how states are now more apt to repudiate, resist, or simply ignore their human rights obligations. This essay makes a different cut into this topic. It considers not how non-liberal actors reject human rights law, but rather what happens when they embrace it. International human rights law in Latin America—often understood as a means of promoting a cosmopolitan, liberal political order—is also being harnessed toward other types of political projects. This raises the question of how necessary the link is between human rights and political liberalism: is non-liberal engagement an existential threat, or can human rights law have a thinner commitment to liberal principles than does, for example, national constitutional law? As the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR) turns fifty, this essay argues that the human rights law of the Americas is open-ended enough that it can incorporate, and has at times incorporated, non-liberal concerns and norms without losing coherence or legitimacy. Further, this may be an apt survival strategy, albeit not the only one, for the region's human rights institutions in our time.

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