International Institutions

Poor countries cut public spending, debt payments trebled

17 January 2020 - by Jubilee Debt Campaign

Figures calculated by Jubilee Debt Campaign from IMF and World Bank data show that growing debt burdens are contributing to public spending cuts. For the 15 countries spending over 18% of revenue on debt payments, 14 saw public spending cuts between 2015 and 2019. Average external government (...)
The Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt (CADTM) on private debt and human rights

13 January 2020 - by Chiara Filoni, Eva Betavatzi, Mats Lucia Bayer

This is our contribution to the appeal made by the UN Independent Expert on the effects of foreign debt and other related international financial obligations of States on the full enjoyment of all human rights, Mr. Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky. Mr. Bohoslavsky, in the course of preparing his next (...)
“Historic process continues at the UN: This week states enter substantive negotiations of the text of a binding treaty on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights”

18 October 2019 - by Stop corporate impunity

Historic process continues at the UN: This week states enter substantive negotiations of the text of a binding treaty on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights 14 October 2019, Geneva: The United Nations (UN) Inter-governmental Working Group (...)
Financial institutions complicit in impact of austerity measures on human rights, says UN expert

10 September 2019 - by Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky

GENEVA (10 September 2019) – Austerity measures imposed by international financial institutions such as the IMF, regularly cause violations of human rights, says UN Independent Expert on foreign debt and human rights, Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky in a report to be presented to the UN General Assembly (...)
World Bank and IMF support to dictatorships

6 May 2019 - by Eric Toussaint

In 2019, the World Bank (WB) and the IMF will be 75 years old. These two international financial institutions (IFI), founded in 1944, are dominated by the USA and a few allied major powers who work to generalize policies that run counter the interests of the world’s populations. The WB and (...)
Mozambique: impact of Cyclone Idai boosts case for non-repayment of secret loans, says UN rights expert

4 April 2019 - by Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky

GENEVA (29 March 2019) – “The realisation of economic, social and cultural rights in Mozambique should not be jeopardised by the servicing of the country’s debt and in particular its ‘secret loan’ component. Human rights and devastating impacts of Cyclone Idai must imperatively be considered in debt (...)
Rwanda: A look back at the 1994 genocide

3 April 2019 - by Eric Toussaint

Starting on 7 April 1994, in less than three months, nearly one million Rwandans – the exact figure has not yet been determined - were exterminated because they were (or supposed to be) Tutsis. Tens of thousands of moderate Hutus were also slaughtered. This was indeed a genocide, that is, the (...)
The US Supreme Court Judgment: A Challenge to World Bank’s unfettered immunity

31 March 2019 - by Sushovan Dhar

The verdict is finally out. On 27 February, in a historic 7-1 decision, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that international organizations like the World Bank Group are not above immunity and can be sued in US courts. This was in response to a case (Budha Ismail Jam, et al., (...)
Stop the EU’s Services Notification Procedure - municipalities need democratic space to protect the interests of citizens!

15 November 2018 - by Collective

A coalition of more than 75 civil society groups, unions, mayors and progressive parties running major European cities has come out to oppose a controversial proposed EU directive that has been pushed by business lobbies and would create major new obstacles for progressive municipal policies (...)
Declaration of the Global Campaign for the closing of the 4^th session of the open-ended intergovernmental working group on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights

22 October 2018 - by Stop corporate impunity

Mr. President, The Global Campaign to reclaim peoples’ sovereignty, dismantle corporate power and stop impunity (Global Campaign), an international network of more than 250 members representing social movements and affected communities and organizations by the activities of the transnational (...)
“The European Commission is the most obscure power of all”

19 October 2018 - by Real World Radio

MEP Lola Sánchez: “There is a struggle between democracy and corporate power within the EU” MEP Lola Sánchez, of Podemos Party, Spain, said this Monday in Geneva (Switzerland) that the head of the European Union delegation at the UN negotiations for a binding treaty on transnational corporations (...)
The IMF and World Bank: Aiding and abetting inequality in Asia

10 October 2018 - by Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development

Despite economic growth, inequality in Asia deepens Fiscal neoliberalism imposed by IFIs continues to exacerbate inequality Civil society renews calls to hold World Bank and IMF to account for their actions Asia continues to draw attention as the “most important engine of global growth,” (...)
UN Human Rights Council passes a resolution adopting the peasant rights declaration in Geneva

1 October 2018 - by La Via Campesina

(Geneva, September 28, 2018) Seventeen years of long and arduous negotiations later, peasants and other people working in rural areas are only a step away from having a UN Declaration that could defend and protect their rights to land, seeds, biodiversity, local markets and a lot more. On (...)
Corporate capture in Europe - When big business dominates policy-making and threatens our right

25 September 2018 - by Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation (ALTER-EU)

This report examines the extreme and undue influence of big business on European Union (EU) and member state decision-making processes. It has been produced by the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation (ALTER-EU) as a response to the distortions we witness in policy and law (...)
Conflicts between Latin American Countries and Transnational Corporations

10 August 2018 - by Jorge Marchini, Josefina Morales, Gabriela Roffinelli

Political positions and laws on foreign investment have been polarized into two opposing perspectives. On the one hand, there is the assumption that foreign direct investment (FDI) is essential for the economies of peripheral countries to take a leap toward development, prompting FDI promotion (...)
Is it possible to call the political regime of the euro democracy?

15 July 2018 - by Sergi Cutillas

Sergi Cutillas is an economist and worked in the financial sector before taking up his work as a financial justice activist in early 2012. He is a member of the European Research Network on Social and Economic Policy. He is now Secretary of Economy and Work in Podemos Catalonia. In its bond (...)
Deloitte, EY, KPMG, PWC: How the Big Four are embedded in EU policy-making on tax avoidance

12 July 2018 - by Corporate Europe Observatory

We pay our taxes, so why don’t corporations? This new report shows how the Big Four are embedded in EU policy-making on tax avoidance, and concludes that it is time to kick this industry out of EU anti-tax avoidance policy. EU policy towards corporate tax avoidance is informed by an advisory (...)
UNCTAD: Debt warning lights flash for poorest countries, experts say

7 May 2018 - by UNCTAD

Top economists from UNCTAD and the International Monetary Fund agree it’s time to sound the alarm on rising public debt in many low-income countries but disagree on how loudly the bell should be rung. Mounting public debt in some of the world’s poorest countries has leading economists worried. (...)
2018 IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings: the Bank has more money, but promises little change

3 May 2018 - by María José Romero, Bodo Ellmers, Gino Brunswijck

The Spring Meetings of the IMF and World Bank took place amid warnings of a ‘borrowed boom’ as an uptick in global growth was matched by global debt levels reaching record highs. The World Bank Group shareholders stumped up for an increase in the Bank’s capital base, but without challenging the (...)
Sri Lanka: IFI’s, External debt and Microcredit

16 April 2018 - by B. Skanthakumar

The seventh CADTM South Asia regional workshop was successfully held in Colombo (Sri Lanka) from April 6 to April 8, 2018, with participants coming from Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Japan, Belgium and France. Around forty delegates, most of them being representatives of social (...)
The World Development Report produced by the World Bank almost completely ignores workers’ rights

12 April 2018 - by Peter Bakvis

The World Bank decided last year to devote the 2019 edition of its flagship annual policy review publication, the World Development Report, to the theme of the future of work. Preparation of the WDR 2019 encountered some delay after the ouster in late January of the report’s first director, the (...)
Open letter to the International Monetary Fund on social protection

9 January 2018 - by Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky

ON December 21st 2017, the Independent Expert on foreign debt and human rights, Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky, sent jointly with several other UN human rights experts an open letter to the International Monetary Fund on the IMF’s approach to social protection. The letter follows the publication of (...)
United Nations: The long and winding road to a binding corporate treaty

26 December 2017 - by Dorothy Guerrero

Dorothy Guerrero was with social movements from around the world in Geneva in october to push the United Nations to adopt a binding treaty on corporations and human rights. The struggle to make transnational corporations (or TNCs) accountable for the ill-effects of their operations and (...)
Debt sustainability review: Tinkering around the edges while crises loom

19 December 2017 - by Tim Jones, Mark Perera

Under the joint Debt Sustainability Framework (DSF) of the World Bank and IMF (Bretton Woods Institutions or BWIs), regular assessments of the risk of external debt distress are conducted for all countries that are eligible to borrow from either institutions’ concessional lending funds (the (...)
ISDS in numbers

15 December 2017 - by Cecilia Olivet, Luciana Ghiotto, Bettina Müller

Impacts of investment arbitration against Latin America and the Carribbean Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries are among the most affected by the investment arbitration system worldwide, representing 28.6% of all known investor-state disputes around the world. In particular, (...)