CESCR Statement: Extra-Territorial Human Rights Obligations and International Financial Institutions
Please see the important message below from Olivier De Schutter, member of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, on that Committee's recent Statement dealing with bilateral and multilateral loans and human rights. Of particular note, the Statement reaffirms much of what many of us have been advocating regarding the human rights obligations of international financial institutions (IFIs) as well as the extra-territorial human rights obligations (ETOs) of Member States of such institutions. This shows the importance of the Parallel Reporting process in normative development at the international level, which now strengths locally- and nationally-based advocacy.
For instance, the content of the Statement was recently used in the Concluding Observations on France, see here.
Also attached is the ETO Consortium's publication on ETOs and IFIs which has a deeper analysis of that subject.
This Statement is the culmination of a lot of efforts and should provide an even stronger basis for our advocacy going forward.
Dear Friends,
I am particularly glad to share with you the statement adopted at its most recent session — and published today — by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Following its recent reviews of Ireland and Greece, and the discussions held during the pre-sessional working group of March 2016 concerning Lebanon (a particularly heavily indebted State), the Committee felt that it could be useful to provide to States parties to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (as well as to international financial institutions) general guidance as to the implications of international human rights law for conditional lending practices.
I hope you will find the statement useful. You are encouraged to share it and, of course, to use it in your work and in your advocacy.
With my best wishes
Olivier De Schutter