Global Economic Governance and the Development Practices of the Multilateral Development Banks by Jonathan R. Strand

Author:Jonathan R. Strand [Strand, Jonathan R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, International Relations, General, Treaties
ISBN: 9781138827127
Google: x1vDoQEACAAJ
Goodreads: 26536225
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-01-15T09:36:40+00:00

Conclusion

Sarfaty (2009) describes human rights in the World Bank as “marginal.” What she means is that despite the sometimes strong rhetoric made by some World Bank officials with regard to human rights, the institution “maintains no comprehensive or consistent approach on the policy and operational levels” (648). Sarfaty (2009) pinpoints the World Bank’s particular organizational culture as the culprit in the institution’s relative lack of incorporation of human rights into its operations. The conclusion of this study on human rights in all the MDBs echoes Sarfaty’s study of the World Bank.

The MDBs have an ambivalent engagement with human rights and this makes them marginal to the overall operations of each institution. Rhetorically, the MDBs acknowledge the importance of human rights for economic

growth and development, but this support is generally limited to economic and social rights. In other words, the MDBs do not seek to promote and protect all human rights for their own sake but only those rights that are directly connected to economic development. Sarfaty (2009) refers to this as “economizing human rights” – that is, promoting and protecting human rights only so far as they promote economic growth and development.

Aside from the rhetoric, the MDBs have made some actual changes that have led to the protection and promotion of some human rights, although these changes have generally been ad hoc and fragmentary. This can most easily be seen in the safeguard policies of each institution. The MDBs have a variety of safeguard policies that address some human rights issues such as involuntary resettlement and indigenous peoples’ rights. However, even the specific safeguards are not generally considered to be on a par with international human rights standards and thus indicate the marginal status that human rights have in the MDBs (Human Rights Watch 2013). The recent revelations regarding the World Bank’s poor implementation of its involuntary resettlement safeguards only re-enforces the notion that the safeguard policies of the MDBs need to be more robust if they are to adequately promote and protect human rights.

All of the MDBs hold firm to their original mandates as institutions focused on promoting economic development. All the institutions have made attempts to both safeguard against human rights abuses that may stem from their lending activities and promote human rights through specific types of lending (social development). However, these attempts have been subsumed by the goal of economic development and more glibly by the notion that “human rights abuses are bad for business.” Ultimately, this ambivalent approach to human rights might have a positive impact on human rights, or at least a neutral impact, but if the development banks were ever to get serious about human rights it would require changes to their mandates to allow more explicit engagement. This may or may not be preferable for a variety of reasons, but within their current incarnations this is probably all we can expect from the development banks.

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