From the Bretton Woods Project: #HumanRights (cont'd):

"Labour #unions, for instance, have long opposed the #BWIs’ systematic weakening of labour rights either directly through conditionality or indirectly through policy advice in flagship reports and surveillance, such as the IMF’s 2017 loan programme to Greece (see Observer Autumn 2017), or the World Bank’s 2018 World Development Report (see Observer Winter 2018), respectively. Other economic and social rights, such as the right to social security, health and education, as well as the broader right to an adequate standard of living, including adequate food, clothing and housing, are all undermined by the BWIs’ promotion of excessively constrained fiscal policies and aggressive privatisation that preclude states from delivering core public services and meeting their international human rights obligations.

"A related and intersectional thread of human rights critiques focuses on how these policies supported, proposed or required by the BWIs are designed unevenly in favour of those already at the top of the economy and society, further exacerbating inequalities within and between countries and disproportionately harming the marginalised, who already are most vulnerable to human rights violations.

"Groups that are often disproportionately and cumulatively disadvantaged by the types of macroeconomic policies the BWIs promote include the poor, women, immigrants, the elderly, children and youth, ethnic and religious minorities, people with disabilities, and LGBTQI communities."

#ReligiousMinorities #EthnicMinorities #ChildLabor #LGBTQI #Exploitation #HumanRights #CorporateColonialism #IMFLoanSharks #WorldBank #LaborUnions

From the Bretton Woods Project: Human rights

"A second stream of longstanding critiques has focused on the content of the policies, programmes and projects that the #BWIs [#IMF and #WorldBank] promote and enforce and how they have undermined a broad spectrum of human rights, with the [#WorldBank] even being labelled a 'human rights-free zone' in 2015 by the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights."

“The World Bank is a Human Rights-Free Zone” – UN expert on extreme poverty expresses deep concern

The World Bank and human rights

29 September 2015

GENEVA – "The United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, has called on the World Bank and its member States to adopt a new and consistent approach to human rights.

"'For most purposes, the World Bank is currently a human rights-free zone. In its operational policies, in particular, it treats human rights more like an infectious disease than universal values and obligations,' Alston says in a new report published online on the approach to human rights by the World Bank, the most important international actor on poverty alleviation."

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2015/09/world-bank-human-rights-free-zone-un-expert-extreme-poverty-expresses-deep

#HumanRights #HumanRightsFreeZone #CorporateColonialism
#IMFLoanSharks
#Exploitation #WorldBank