The World Bank’s approach to human rights is disingenuous, outdated and “deeply troubling”, an independent UN investigator has said.
Professor Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said that after 40 years of inconclusive internal discussions, the Washington-based organisation and its 188 member countries had to realise they could no longer separate human rights from development financing.
“The bank has for a long time played a double game where a lot of the publicity suggests that they are engaging intensively with human rights. You’ll find many references on their websites. They have conferences every year where there are lots of panels on human rights and so on,” he said.
“But the reality is the exact opposite. They can talk about these issues but when it comes to country programming and the advice and so on that they give – which is their core mission – they won’t touch human rights.”
The World Bank Group, which spent $61bn (£39bn) supporting developing countries last year, has often been criticised for failing to take into account the impact its projects can have on human rights.
The World Bank has rejected Alston’s claims.
In a recent and unusually scathing report, Alston described the bank’s approach to human rights as “incoherent, counterproductive and unsustainable”, adding that it was for most purposes, “a human rights free zone”, and an institution whose operational policies treat human rights “more like an infectious disease than universal values and obligations”.
The special rapporteur, a law professor at New York University, rejects the bank’s argument that a “political prohibition” clause prevents it from becoming involved in the “political affairs of any member” and that its decisions can be governed only by economic considerations.
“I see that legal analysis as bankrupt,” he said. “It is not in line with anything else the bank does. They have singled out human rights as almost the only issue that they would see as political [yet] they engage in the full range of environmental issues, which are deeply political. They engage in governance, which is entirely political, they engage in anti-corruption campaigns. None of these is characterised as political. But suddenly they draw the line at human rights and I think this is very artificial.”
Such an interpretation, he added, was based on cold war thinking rather than the 21st century, when human rights are enshrined in a range of international treaties to which almost every state has signed up.
Alston argues that building human rights into the decision-making process also makes economic sense. He points to Tunisia before the revolution that triggered the Arab spring.
“If you looked at the bank’s analysis, things were going great in Tunisia. It was a good investment, etcetera. If you looked at all the human rights groups, they would tell you that things were very grim in Tunisia, that there were many problems and they would suggest that the model was not sustainable.
“That’s not to say that the bank should have switched over and been an Amnesty International when looking at Tunisia, but if you and I are sitting in Washington DC, working out what policy we’re going to have towards Tunisia, it would make a very big difference if we factor in the reports that are coming in from human rights sources and we might then start to develop the programming in a different way to take account of what the risks really were.”
Alston also said that the advent of two rival development banks – the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Brics’ New Development Bank – could actually offer the World Bank an opportunity.
“Some people point at the new banks and say, ‘That’s why the World Bank can’t have high human rights standards, because it won’t be able to compete with new banks that don’t care about human rights,” he said.
“The irony in fact is that what those other banks seem to be doing so far is simply replicating the World Bank’s very low standards.”
He added: “It’s the World Bank that has led the race to the bottom rather than the other two. [Yet human rights] could be its strength.”
Despite his criticisms, Alston pointed to the bank’s major role in the fight against HIV/Aids and Ebola and said it would play “the key role” in the sustainable development agenda over the next 15 years.
“It has the capacity to do these things, it’s got a very sophisticated staff,” he said.
“Much of what it does is very progressive, and that’s why I think it’s a big mistake to suddenly have what one might call, in another context, this Chinese wall separating human rights out. That really just puts them at a disadvantage.
“To have the thought leader arguing, in effect, that the whole development equation can be kept separate from human rights is deeply troubling”.
Alston acknowledged that human rights policy could be extremely problematic, but said that was no excuse for the bank’s member states to avoid a debate on the issue.
“I think there’s been a lot of convenient defeatism on the part of some of the western countries who all say, ‘We stand for human rights but we just don’t see the support out there. The political environment is not strong’. I think that’s a sellout, that sort of argument. With human rights, you’re always pushing against barriers.”
He conceded that his choice of words in the report was not “the normal diplomatic language” but said he felt he had to opt for bluntness.
“The thing that frustrates me most is that a report like mine comes out and what you get are a few dismissive comments attributed to the spokesperson or whoever, but no engagement with the issues,” he said.
“Where’s it wrong? In what ways are the facts that I describe inaccurate? Where are human rights brought into any of their programming? But they haven’t engaged in that debate and I think that’s a real problem.”
A spokesman for the World Bank said Alston’s report had fundamentally misrepresented its position on human rights, adding the bank was disappointed that he was using his voluntary position as a special rapporteur to present “a distorted picture” of the its work.
The spokesman went on: “Human rights principles are essential for sustainable development and are consistently applied in our work to end poverty and boost shared prosperity. For decades, the World Bank has argued that human rights and development are mutually reinforcing.”