Dr Celine Tan, Dr Stephen Connelly and Rafael Quintero-Godinez have contributed research and academic opinion to a forthcoming report to the UN General Assembly.

The report by the UN Independent Expert on Foreign Debt and Human Rights, Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky, addresses the complicity of international financial institutions (IFIs) for human rights violations caused by their policies and operations.

It argues that austerity measures and other economic reforms implemented by states as conditions of IFI lending, can impact negatively on a wide range of human rights, including the right to health, education and housing, and that IFIs should be held accountable for such human rights violations.

The report finds evidence in international law and institutional practice to suggest an attribution of responsibility on the part of IFIs for harms caused by their economic reform policies and that while states remain the main duty bearers within the international human rights regime, international organisations, such as IFIs, can be complicit in the pursuit of a wrongful act if prescribing policies that have the potential to harm or contribute towards violations of human rights.

Dr Tan, a Reader in Law at Warwick Law School and Director of the Centre for Law, Regulation and Governance of the Global Economy (GLOBE) says, “It has been a pleasure for us to support the Independent Expert in raising greater awareness of the very real societal and economic harms that can occur as a consequence of bad policies imposed on countries and communities facing financial and sovereign debt crises and are turning to the international community for support and assistance. We are also pleased to provide research that will lend greater support towards promoting greater international legal responsibility for IFIs for their role in promoting problematic economic reform policies in these countries.”

Dr Connelly, is an Associate Professor at the Law School and Mr Quintero-Godinez is a PhD student at the Law School.

The full report to the General Assembly can be found here.