Carey L. Biron — World Bank Urged to Include Human Rights in Safeguards Review

Backed by the German government and prominent civil society voices, United Nations experts are calling for the World Bank to explicitly incorporate international human right standards into its “safeguards” to minimise negative impacts of bank financing on vulnerable communities and environments.

The bank is currently wrapping up the first of a two-year review of its environmental and social safeguards, a process that has included dozens of global consultations. Initial discussion on those developments is slated for Saturday during semi-annual meetings between the bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) held in Washington. A publication date for a draft of the reforms has not yet been decided.

“All activities supported by the World Bank…should be included in the review to ensure consistency with international human rights standards,” a group of independent U.N. experts stated in a release Friday. “Doing so would improve development outcomes and strengthen the protection of the world’s poorest from unintended adverse impacts of activities financed by the Bank.”

Groups around the world are advocating for a broadening of the bank’s safeguard policies to more fully take into account specific needs related to gender, disability, indigenous rights and labour. Others worry that the reforms process could actually weaken safeguards, a fear reiterated by the U.N. experts.

As a development institution and a member of the U.N. family, the bank is obligated to give “due weight to international human rights standards”, Cephas Lumina, the U.N.’s independent expert on foreign debt and human rights, noted. “States must also adhere to their international law obligations when they act through international organisations. The World Bank is no exception.”

Inter Press Service
World Bank Urged to Include Human Rights in Safeguards Review
Carey L. Biron

The qualifier:

“When I started this job, I asked all of the econometricians and economists about the value added [by incorporating human rights], and they said that they just couldn’t establish such a connection,” NTF coordinator Anders Zeijlon told IPS. “It seems there are too many variables at stake.”

Zeijlon noted that he was “surprised” by the findings, but admitted it is difficult for the bank to prioritise human rights-related indicators without “hard-nosed data” that can explain their impact. However, related studies are underway.

“In the coming years you will see a large number of evaluations and more detailed looks at specific sectors and so on,” he said. “The challenge will be to take that information and try to aggregate it in a useful way.”

"Value added by incorporating human rights"? When the number one source of value in modern political theory is human rights? How does one quantify the "value" of human rights? Impossible, because human rights are priceless, and all other values are minuscule in comparison.

BTW, this also pertains to developed nations like the US with large underclasses that are systematically excluded from the benefits of the society at large due to discrimination, economic marginalization, and other similar factors that keep sub-cultures in institutionalized poverty.

See also Learn From the Children by Gordon Brown, U.N. Special Envoy for Global Education and former Prime Minister of Britain.