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The World Bank and Human Rights

The World Bank and Human Rights

Critics of the World Bank claim that many Bank programs violate human rights, and want human rights integrated into the Bank’s policies. The Bank replies that its statutes prohibit interference in the domestic political affairs of governments - and that its anti-poverty programs benefit human rights. Two senior officials from the Bank shared their views with NGO representatives and engaged in a lively exchange with the audience, at the Intercultural Center Auditorium, Georgetown University on Thursday, November 14, 2002.

Read the summary report.

Transcribed Debate

Moderator: Iain Guest, Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University, and Executive Director of the Advocacy Project

Featured speakers:

Ian Johnson (Senior Vice President for the Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development Network, World Bank)

Judith Edstrom (Sector Manager for Social Development, World Bank)

Irungu Houghton (US Program Coordinator, ActionAidUSA)

Mike Jendrzejczyk (Washington Director, Asia Division, Human Rights Watch)

Sponsored by: The Institute for the Study of International Migration, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service  tel: 202 687-2406 and The Advocacy Project  tel: 202 332-3900.

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Iain Guest: Thank you for coming. This is the sixth meeting of the Human Rights Forum, which is organized by the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University. The purpose is to create a platform for a discussion for human rights issues that are important and also quite tough. Few issues are as tough or important as the one we are going to discuss today.

There is a tremendous amount of interest in the World Bank and its human rights role, both among the human rights community and also here on campus. I can tell you that globalization is the hottest topic in my course this semester! It is also very close to home here in Washington. It is exactly the kind of issue that should be debated here on campus.

We’ve invited over four experts who are very much a part of this debate. Ian Johnson is the World Bank’s Vice President for environmentally and sustainable development. Human rights falls under his vice-presidency. He is also heading an internal task force on human rights at the Bank, which will be making recommendations to the World Bank President. Next to him is Judith Edstrom, Sector Manager for Social Development at the Bank. Together, they represent the key human rights focal point within the Bank. So we are very fortunate that they are here and very grateful to them for attending.

Nongovernmental organizations have also formed their own informal coordinating group to lobby with the Bank on human rights, and we have two representatives from that group here today. Irungu Houghton is the Program Coordinator for Action Aid USA in Washington. Irungu has also been very involved in development in the field in Africa. Mike Jendrzejczyk has had a long career in human rights, first with Amnesty International and then with Human Rights Watch. And he now heads the Asia Division on Human Rights Watch here in Washington.

We’ve agreed that it might save some time if I set out some of the issues briefly, in advance. I hope you will bear with me while I do that.

The World Bank was set up in1947 with a mandate to promote reconstruction and development. Last year it loaned almost 20 billion dollars to over a hundred developing countries. It is an institution of enormous power - and that power goes way beyond money. When the Bank lends money to a government it is a mark of approval from the international community. It opens up a lot of money and had a considerable impact.

Why the controversy over human rights? Let me summarize some of the major concerns of the human rights community.

First of all, large projects which receive funding from the World Bank often have a damaging impact on human rights. For example, they cause forcible displacement and have a particularly harmful impact on indigenous peoples. There are many examples of this going back to the early 1980’s, when the Bank was criticized by the environmental movement for funding a highway that ran through the Amazon. There is a current controversy over a pipeline that takes oil from Chad to Cameroon, which I am sure some of you have also read about.

Second concern - the impact of the model of development which is promoted by the World Bank, particularly structural adjustment lending. These loans are meant to strengthen the economy of the borrowing country over the long-term. But critics maintain that they result in severe austerity measures which have a damaging impact on the poor and can also cause a political backlash. In Equador, two or three governments have fallen within the last ten years as a result of the imposition of structural adjustment policies. I think this is why the Bank has become such a lightening rod for concerns about globalization.

Thirdly, the Bank lends money to governments that violate human rights. This goes way back to the period of the 1960’s when the Bank offered loans to the South African government over the objections of the United Nations. (I was recently reading a letter that was sent by the Human Rights Watch to the Bank’s President at the end of 1999, complaining about loans to the Russian Federation. Human Rights Watch wanted $100 million worth of loans stopped because of the war in Chechnya.)

There are many other concerns which I am sure our NGO friends will touch on: the secrecy of the Bank’s Board of governors; the Bank’s unwillingness to disclose information about its projects; doubts about whether the Bank is serious about listening to complaints from people who are affected by Bank projects.

So to sum up, there is a concern within the human rights community that the Bank’s policies do impact human rights; that the Bank is unwilling to face up to this and accept responsibility. The Bank hides behind its articles of agreement, which we will discuss in a moment. It maintains that it not bound by international human rights standards and norms.

Now, the Bank’s counter-arguments are not heard that often. Maybe they deserve to be heard, more clearly and more often.

Broadly speaking, as I am sure many of you know, the Bank’s articles prevent it from interfering in the domestic affairs of the governments and from taking a political position. Its mandate is economic development. It is not the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. All this means that the Bank cannot directly challenge governments over human rights abuses and policies.

However, within these constraints, Bank officials like Mr. Johnson and Ms. Edstrom would say they have managed to achieve and meet many of the concerns that have just been laid out. For example - and this is set out very clearly in a Bank paper that was released in 1998 - the Bank says that by providing money for schools for agriculture, for hospitals, for health, it is doing more to protect human rights than many of those resolutions passed at the UN Human Rights Commission. The Bank has a practical impact - particularly on economic and social rights, which is the poor stepchild of international human rights.

Secondly, the Bank is engaged politically. It is training judges. It is building (law) courts. It has a very extensive rule of law program. And this has to have a very direct impact on human rights. If you are waiting in jail for a trial in Uganda, the chances are you could die because the process takes so long. So by lending to the government of Uganda to develop the judicial system in Uganda, the Bank is addressing that very real abuse.

It is addressing corruption and it is promoting transparency. This allows for money to be allocated where it is needed and it also indirectly supports and benefits democracy. The Bank is involved in many post-conflict situations. It is supporting the peace process in Guatemala, and it is supporting civil society in the Palestinian territories.

All of these roles are highly “political.” In other words, the Bank’s articles may prevent it from political engagement. But actually, it is doing a very political job. It is “interfering” in the domestic affairs of governments by supporting civil society. This has been a very big push by the Bank in recent years. Take the way poverty strategies are developed in countries through the poverty reduction strategy papers. This is done with civil society – and the more you support civil society, the more you challenge central governments.

Third, the impact of Bank projects. The Bank has adopted a series of operational policies on resettlement, on indigenous people, on environmental impact assessment, which are meant to provide safeguards. It also has an inspection panel with three members (one of whom, incidentally, is a Georgetown professor, Edith Brown-Weiss) which can hear complaints from two or more people who feel they have been harmed by World Bank project. That inspection panel has heard about 30 cases since it was set up in 1994.

Fourth, participation. The Bank is encouraging, promoting and supporting participation in the field as well as here in Washington DC. And for us in the human rights movement participation is a key right.

Formally the Bank’s articles prevent it from interference, and taking a “political” position. But in practice, the Bank’s officials would maintain it is doing a lot of what the human right community would like it to do.

Finally, I would suggest that (this issue) raises some quite important strategic questions for the human rights community. It asks us to remember who calls the shots in the Bank - and they are not always officials like Mr. Johnson and Ms. Edstrom. The World Bank’s board has tremendous power. I have heard from many in the Bank that if you push too hard on the people you want to talk to within the Bank, then it can backfire.

Secondly, does the human rights community want the Bank to play the role of a human rights commissioner and put governments on the spot? Would that not weaken the Bank’s efforts to lend money to poor countries that really have no other way of getting hold of money? Does the human rights community really want the Bank to exercise more conditionality - to withhold money from governments that violate human rights and to reward governments that respect human right? Remember - the Bank lends money to poor countries. It does not lend money to my government, Britain, or your government the US. It lends to poor countries. So if we are asking the Bank to impose condition on its borrowers, is this not another form of selectivity?

With these remarks, it is time to turn to our panelists. The two sides that are represented at the table have told us emphatically that they are seeking information, not a confrontation. The NGOs are very keen to know about this working group in the Bank that is headed by Mr. Johnson. They want to know if it is going to disappear into the Bank’s bureaucracy, and whether or not it is going to come up with recommendations that will be listened to, particularly by the operational people at the World Bank.

I imagine they’d also like to know how the NGO and human rights communities can contribute. Will the Bank be appointing a human rights expert as a human rights focal point?

On the Bank side, Mr. Johnson has been asked by the President of the World Bank to come up with practical recommendations, and that’s really why he is here. He wants to know what the human rights community would like of the Bank, and how the Bank could and should change - if that’s what the human rights community wants. He’d also like to know precisely what is meant by a “rights-based approach” to development. This is a term that’s often thrown around and very frequently not defined particularly very well.

We thought that Mike and Irungu could start off from the NGO position. Then Ian and Judith could respond. We’ll then open the floor up to questions. We have until 2 o’clock if we need it. So without further ado, over to you Mike and Irungu.

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Irungu Houghton (ActionAidUSA):

Thank you very much, Iain. Good morning. It is not customary for the NGO representatives to speak first; so some of you may impute in this that there has been a shift in power (laughter). I’d like to say that there has been no shift in power. But it is an opportunity that I relish in a sense, because it means that we, as organizations outside of a powerful institution, can try and set some agenda for the institution and make (it) accountable to demands and needs that are outside of (its) own bureaucratic systems.

I work for an organization called ActionAid. We work in several countries across the world. And we work primarily in those countries which have a high concentration of poor people - countries where poor people live and struggle to achieve a kind of life of dignity. We really approach this subject from that perspective: (To build) space that is required at community and national levels. To be able to define and to determine empowerment strategies that allow for people to work on poverty and work toward wealth and security.

Essentially, I’d like to cover four issues:

• The definition of basic human rights.
• The issue of (the Bank’s) Statute, and the claim that is made by the Board and management of the Bank that the mandate of the institution prevents it from engaging in this arena.
• The claim that anti-poverty programs are by their necessity human rights-focused, or that they are within a framework of human rights.
• To try and draw out some propositions and some suggestions for those allies in the Bank that want to push this agenda forward. What are be the things we would be looking for as a community outside of the Bank to see that there is some due diligence being paid to this issue?

As I began preparing for this presentation I remembered proverb that begins like this: “If someone wants to roast you, do not smear yourself with oil and sit by a fireside waiting for them.” And it very much captures some of the anxiety within the World Bank at the moment - that touching on the human rights issue is like smearing yourself with oil; that the fire exists and is real; that there is a case to answer on human rights violations; (and) that (responding would cause) this barrage of concerns to appear in a new and much more propelled manner.

I think this is a legitimate fear. I think we need to start off by saying that, even though there are also elements that suggest that this is not such a new thing. It does require that certain fundamental changes to be made within the Bank. It’s something that you can just paint over.

The definition of poverty: For those of you in academic institutions, there are a tremendous number of concepts and theories about poverty, rights, entitlements and so on. I would just like to offer one that I think has been pretty useful for me in terms of how I’ve approached the “rights frame-work.” Again this may be an area for discussion.

Poverty is essentially the erosion of the human rights entitlements and capabilities. A poor person has been stripped of his capacity to be able to produce effectively, to be able to reproduce in a dignified manner, and to be able to live in a life of dignity. That essential is what we’re talking about when it comes to poverty. Human rights abuses therefore lead to poverty and impoverishment.

There has been huge debate about breaking these into separate forms of rights - civil and political liberties on one hand, and economic, social and cultural rights on the other hand. I would argue at this point that it is not important. What it important is the recognition of the intrinsic link between poverty and rights?

With that definition in mind, it seems clear - as Iain has said - that the idea that the Bank’s statutes and mandates prohibit “interference” by the Bank is patently false. The World Bank is a political institution. It has been political. Its very act of establishment is a political act and it continues to intervene politically in the domestic affairs of countries, like my own, and like the countries that all of you come from. This includes those of you that live in the north. The only difference is that your governments have more power.

If you look at the main function of the Bank – budgetary support, aid flows, conditionality (and we now see an increase in the number of conditionalites to include corruption, governments, rule of law) engagement with civil society. These all are means by which the World Bank patently involves itself in the political affairs of governments. I think that’s just a fact.

If the World Bank was to exist on paper, we might say perhaps that the statutes and mandates prohibit interference. But it does not exist on paper alone. It is a living institution which impacts daily on several countries across the world.

We need to be looking at the political choices that the World Bank is making. When the Bank (and for that matter the IMF) makes the choice to advise governments, it does so essentially in three areas:

• The sustainability of debt payments;
• Enabling environment for foreign investment;
• Downsizing of the state.

Should the Bank’s many projects and programs all be equated to a human rights focus? The answer is no. If that was the case, then every single institution that is working on development would be a human rights organization. We would lose the focus of a rights-based approach.

It is true that the Bank’s work on health and education does support governments to realize the right to education and health. But if it is accompanied by conditionality around cost recovery and fees on access to primary schools, or fees on access to basic health care, or fees on access to water systems, then universal access is actually subverted in its own context. You produce lots of resources, but at the end of the day - as we have seen across the world - the figures of the people living in poverty are just not improving (according to most indicators).

The other issue that that needs to be thought through a little - and I hope that both Ian Johnson and Judith can both speak to this - is the Bank’s attempt to try and separate civil and political liberties from economic to social and cultural rights. One of the concerns that I have is that the Bank is beginning to focus only on civil political rights and liberties (rule of law and so on) which are individual rights perhaps but not necessarily group rights.

Take the movement for the survival of the Ogoni people in Nigeria. Most of you are aware of this case. It took place after thousands of people tried to rally around land degradation and water contamination that was created by transnational corporations. There were violations both of the economic and social and cultural rights violations, but also civil and political liberties. The case essentially showed that it is not possible to separate those two. You cannot focus on rule of law, without focusing on the economic social and cultural rights of the Ogoni people.

I’d like now perhaps to look at the issue of shifts. Great confusion exists about whether the “Washington Consensus” – that big gamut of philosophies and world views that the World Bank and IMF have been working with - has died, resurrected or is dormant.

It is quite clear that the Bank has an opportunity to embrace a rights-based framework. This would give it a paradigm that would help the institution work itself out of this impasse. I think this is a compelling point. This paradigm would give an operational framework to the Bank to be able to say very clearly where it stands on various issues.

(The paradigm would allow the Bank to) conduct poverty-social issues assessments, which could cover accountability to rights as laid down by various conventions ratified by governments. The Bank could join and not get left behind by the vast range of UN agencies that have began to work on this issue. The promotions of Bank staff could be linked not to the number or the volume of the aid that is passed, but to the extent to which human standards are met in each of the specific countries.

There could be ways in which the Bank ensures that it neither does no harm (which is the violation side) but it also becomes part of the matrix of accountability that is building within the countries in the South.

Rights as obligations. Rights as means. Rights as a way of engaging poor people to stake out their claims on government - what it is they expect government to do?

I’d like to invoke an example from my own country, Kenya. We are in the process of moving through a constitutional review agenda. The existing constitution states (in the first three statutes) that the government has an obligation to pay back foreign creditors. Then it has an obligation to pay its civil service. It is only below that, that you begin to get to the bill of rights – and even then it is silent on economic, social and cultural rights.

My government obviously has actually prioritized debts, the balance of payments, fiscal deficits over the needs of its own people. That is a direct consequence of the type of relationship that the World Bank has had with our governments over the last thirty to forty years.

If they were to shift that, then you might see a growing domestic accountability within our countries not just Kenya but elsewhere in the world - Nepal, Vietnam, Haiti, Guatemala. We would see that happening. But we would not see that unless there is a shift in paradigm within the Bank.

For those of you who are concerned about aid flows, aid effectiveness should be measured on the basis of what citizens can demand of their state - what it is they want the state to do; how (the state) proposes to generate the resources to do it; and how these resources must be spent.

I’d like to stop there and thank you. (Applause)

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Mike Jendrzejczyk (Human Rights Watch):

The World Bank has published a document which you can find on their website outlining the Bank’s approach to human rights. I’d like to start by quoting it because I think it provides a useful framework for this discussion.

It says first of all that the World Bank believes that creating conditions for the attainment of human rights is a “central and irreducible goal for development.” Pretty strong language!

The document also acknowledges that while the Bank has always taken measures to ensure that human rights is respected in carrying out its own projects, it has been less forthcoming about articulating its role in promoting human rights within the countries where it operates. Again that is a direct quote.

Now others have alluded to the articles of agreement. And it’s true the articles of agreement explicitly state that Bank decision-making should be based only on economic considerations. That is exactly the way the charter reads.

However, the document published in 1998 goes on to say that by supporting primary education, health care and environmental projects, the Bank is helping to attain crucial economic and social rights. And by helping to fight corruption, improve transparency and accountability in governance, it is helping to contribute to build an environment in which people are better able to pursue a broader range of human rights.

I think this is very important to look at - especially this last statement.

On the positive side, clearly the Bank has made enormous progress in recent years. Previously it would resist vehemently even having this discussion – internally and certainly not in a public arena such as this. Now in fact the Bank is engaged in this discussion, both internally and publicly.

But at the same time, by stressing that the Bank’s role is an indirect one, aimed at creating an environment in which the broad spectrum of rights might be protected, Bank officials are clearly selectively interpreting what aspects of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the Bank will focus on. (They are) clearly differentiating between economic social and cultural rights on the one hand, and civil and political rights on the other hand - rather than seeing how closely these two are related.

By strategically focusing on this very linkage the Bank’s voice could make a serious and significant impact and difference. I think in fact that is precisely what the Bank is struggling towards - a more holistic approach that could inform its thinking and its strategy so it can address the full spectrum of rights.

The new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Sergio Vieira de Mello, a Brazilian, has extensive experience both on the rights side and on the development side of the equation. And I think this would be an opportunity for the Bank to engage with him to help discover strategies where the Bank could be fully involved across the spectrum.

My organization, Human Rights Watch, a nongovernmental organization, has discussed the firm way in which the Bank divides these two sets of rights, with the Bank: with the Bank’s Legal Office, with people at the operational level, at the vice-presidential level, and at various levels in the Bank. I think the good news is that they are engaged again in this discussion. They are willing to at least to entertain the notion that there is a close linkage, and that this division is rather arbitrary.

As Iain mentioned in the opening, the World Bank President Wolfensohn has now opened the door for this wider discussion at a seminar he called for this past May. In fact the very question Mr. Wolfensohn himself posed is in fact the bottom line. He asked: “How far should the Bank go in supporting the notion that protecting human rights is the basis for poverty alleviation? How far should we go out on that political limb?” And this is where the very practical operational consideration come into play.

I’d like to throw out a few observations and a few very specific suggestions and some examples - both negative and positive - that I think might point the way for some of this discussion.

First of all, clearly, the Bank has a long way to go in operationalizing its current commitments. It is now committed to fight against and curb child labor. It is committed to exposing corruption. (This was previously a taboo subject the Bank would not touch with a ten-foot or a twenty-foot pole in its operational work or its dialogue with governments.) It is - theoretically - committed to promoting good governance, rule of law, and transparency - the kinds of words we heard bandied about her this morning. However, I would still argue there is a long way to go to actually operationalize these general principles, policies and commitments.

Also I would argue that on some very important new emerging social issues like HIV/AIDS and the internet the Bank is at a pivotal position. It can perform an enormously important role at the very nexus where human rights and development concerns come together. I’ll add to this point later.

The rule of law and legal reform. It’s true the Bank is committed to building transparent and open legal and judicial systems. But thus far, most if not all of the Bank’s resources in most of the countries where it is active have been devoted to commercial and civil law reform - not basic criminal and penal law reform.

I think this is a key problem, certainly in the region of the world where I work - Vietnam, China. There is no way you can root out official corruption without a truly independent judiciary. If the judges and the lawyers are in the back pocket of corrupt party officials, there is no way they can either protect the civil liberties and rights of Chinese or Vietnamese citizens - or hold accountable public officials who are taking money out of the public till. So I think this is where the Bank still has a major leap to make.

Now in some discussions we have had, the Bank argues: “Look, we do not have the technical expertise in this area. The UN Development Program and other agencies are far better suited to do this kind of work.” That may be the case, but I think that the Bank should develop the expertise. It should work in conjunction with NGOs and other agencies to take on the fundamental reform of legal and judicial systems, if it is in fact serious about rooting out corruption.

Secondly, when it comes to promoting the rights of poor people, and asserting their rights and their needs as the Bank develops poverty reduction strategies, the Bank can make very concrete contributions. Take the case of China.

The Chinese legal system is now trying to establish legal aid centers throughout rural China. This covers the poor provinces and areas of China that are not benefiting from the economic development which is mainly going in the coastal areas and the large cities.

We have asked the Bank: “Can’t you do something to assist in the development of these legal aid centers and (encourage them) to work with trafficked women, unemployed workers, ethnic minorities who have claimed the impact of economic dislocation?” We have talked to the Bank about this several times. Thus far they are not interested. That’s not our role, they say.

I think it should be their role. I think precisely the role of legal aid centers in a country like China, which is in the midst of a major transition, is precisely where the Bank should be making its voice heard and giving the weight of its technical expertise. This should be part of an overall poverty reduction strategy if the Bank is serious about pursuing those objectives in a huge and complicated country like China.

Civil Society: Beyond the areas of legal and judicial reform, we have heard a little bit here this morning about the role of nongovernmental organizations. The Bank, to its credit, now has civil society specialists and liaison staff in (many of) its field offices. Their role theoretically is to get the input of NGOS across the board as they develop poverty reduction strategies and projects.

In a few cases like Cambodia and Indonesia that I’m familiar with, nongovernmental organizations have actually been invited to the annual donor meetings convened by the Bank for all the bilateral donors. This is where commitments are made and donor strategies are hammered out. But again this is the exception not the rule. This is not going on in most parts of the world.

But I think, even more than that, the Bank has an obligation to protect NGOs, especially where they are under attack or under pressure. This is precisely because NGOs are on the front line of the very issues that the Bank is committed to.

One case last year involved a London-based nongovernmental agency in Cambodia called Global Witness. Global Witness has staff in Phnom Penh who are monitoring illegal logging and reporting directly to the IMF and to the donors. One of the staff people had her life threatened and was beaten up late at night by masked men outside the office.

To the Bank’s credit, the Bank weighed in with Cambodian government. A senior official sent a letter to the Cambodian authorities demanding an investigation. I think the Bank’s voice was very important here - in conjunction with the voice of other diplomats and ambassadors - weighing in on behalf of other bilateral donors.

That was a fairly easy case where the Bank could see very clearly that its interests were at stake. However, let me give you another case. A few years ago a Chinese lawyer set up an independent nongovernmental organization in China with 300 members in seventeen provinces to monitor and expose world corruption. He tried to register the group with the Ministry of Civil Affairs. The group was deemed illegal. He was put on trial for subversion.

Before the trial happened, he went to the Bank and said quietly: “Could you raise concern about his case?” We also made clear the message that it would send about the role of independent watchdogs in China if he was put on trial and thrown in prison. The Bank waited awhile and finally got back to us, and said: “Sorry we’re not going to do that.” And he subsequently got a four-year prison sentence on charges of subversion which he is now serving.

Now here is a case where I think the Bank would lose very little. Clearly China is not going to throw the Bank out of the country when they get $563 million - as they did last year - for privately raising concerns about one lawyer who is about to go on trial. On the positive side, I think the Bank would send a very strong signal that it is serious about the role of civil society in a developing economy like China’s and the role of NGOs in activities like exposing corruption.

Similarly, when it comes to the internet - a third issue I want to comment on just briefly. Here of course the Bank has played a very important role in trying to get the internet introduced, especially in developing countries where it is a crucial engine for social and economic reform. Mr. Wolfensohn has spoken repeatedly about reducing the “digital divide.” There is no question that there is an enormous amount of work that can be in this area.

But beyond the kind of work the Bank is already doing, I think it could go further to ensure that when the internet is used to promote democratic reforms and to call for an end of corruption, those who use the internet in these ways are not therefore vulnerable to persecution or attack. This is the case not only in China but also in Vietnam and in a number of other countries, where people are literally thrown in prison for using the internet in this way.

I hate to keep bringing up negative examples but here is another one. A couple of years ago, a computer operator named Huong Qi, from Chengdu in Sichuan province, went on trial in China for setting up the first human rights web site.* This was at a time when internet companies outside of China were scrambling to get a foothold inside the country.

When he was first charged, his case got an enormous amount of attention in the media and was raised by a number of governments. And again privately we went to the Bank and asked: “Couldn’t you express concern about this to the Chinese authorities? Say that if they want the internet to be fully employed inside China, they can’t arbitrarily restrict its use? That there are fundamental obligations to protect the right of free expression - Article 19, for example under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights - which China has signed but not yet ratified. That they would be violated if these kinds of cases go forward?”

Again the Bank declined. We’re not sure exactly why, but I have heard in the last several months that the Bank is interested in developing its long-term relationship with the Chinese government and that raising a case like this might in some way jeopardize that. Frankly, I have a hard time swallowing that argument.

Finally on the issue of HIV/AIDS. Here again I would give the Bank a great deal of credit, especially in recent months, for mobilizing millions of dollars for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment around the world. What Bill Gates has just done in India is just one of many, many, spin-offs of that kind of effort.

However, this general commitment - which I think is growing on the part of not just Bank management but key donors - isn’t always backed up by committing the same kind of resources to monitor and evaluate the human rights impact on HIV/AIDS of government practices in a number of key countries.

We published this past July for example an extensive study of India. In India the HIV/AIDS crisis is reaching epidemic proportions. The government recently admitted now four million Indians now have the virus. That makes it the second largest population outside of South Africa. The Bank, I should add, is the number one donor for the national HIV/AIDS treatment program in India, giving about 200 million dollars.

However, we’ve also documented that while on the one hand the public health ministries in India are committed to this, law enforcement is not. We documented in this report case after case of HIV/AIDS workers - those working especially with prostitutes and men who have sex with men - being beaten up, harassed, arrested and abused by Indian law enforcement. This directly undercuts the work precisely of the constituencies and the communities that the Bank is committed to helping. And we have asked the Bank to ensure that the regular monitoring and reporting on the human right violations that directly impact HIV/AIDS work in India be part of the Bank’s administration of this 200 million-dollar loan.

In fact, tomorrow we are taking one of the key HIV/AIDS workers from India to the Bank to talk to people in the South Asia department of the Bank precisely about how the Bank can use its enormous leverage to stop this kind of abuse and harassment.

And I want to end on that rather positive note because I do think there is a great deal of good will emerging in various parts of the Bank. Human Rights Watch and others work with NGOs around the world who would like to engage with the Bank as an active partner in promoting human rights as part and parcel of the Bank’s long-term agenda to promoting sustainable development.

To go back to the Bank’s own rhetoric. They have said it themselves: you cannot have sustainable development without protection of basic human rights. The question is - how can the Bank contribute to that effort? Thank you. (Applause).

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Ian Johnson (World Bank):

First I think staff in the Bank care very deeply about human rights for many, many reasons. The main mission of the Bank is poverty alleviation, and there is clearly a link. Most people join the Bank because they believe in the mission of the Bank. They come from many of the countries where many of the abuses that Mike and Irungu have spoken about. It’s part of coming to an institution that can make a difference.

I thought I might talk briefly about what I see as a very changing landscape. I think things are not black and white as we move forward, and this applies particularly to the articles of agreement. I’ll talk a bit about what we’re doing on the task force and perhaps end up with a few comments about some of the points made by Mike and Irungu.

Understanding Poverty: First, I think that there has been a shift in our understanding and thinking of poverty. It started twenty to thirty years ago as a per capita income concept. If you were above a certain income threshold, you weren’t poor. But some of the poorest people I’ve ever seen in the world are in this city. Certainly they can earn just about enough. Certainly they can get access to basic services. But they are the most impoverished because they are the most disenfranchised people I’ve ever seen. If you go and see people sitting on the streets in this city it is atrocious.

So I think on our side, our understanding of poverty has shifted from per capita income to per capita income plus access to basic services. How do you get access to basic services - primary education, primary health care and the like?

Then a few years ago we moved to a better understanding of exclusion; inclusion; and disenfranchisement - the extent to which people are fragile or vulnerable within the society. It is these three legs of the poverty stool which matter. Frankly, it is easier to operationalize the first two than the third and I think this is one of the areas we are struggling with. But I do think there has been a major shift in our thinking on poverty.

Safeguard policies: Similarly we have done a lot of thinking, coming out of the environmental movement about fifteen years ago, of environmental and social policies. We call these our safeguard policies. We use them to try and mitigate against harm done to third parties. They started essentially as environmental policies, but they have shifted more toward social policies related to indigenous peoples and (other) people affected by projects that are financed by the Bank. I’m increasingly trying to get others to understand that these policies are useful in determining outcomes with respect to third parties.

These policies, by the way, are the most stringent of any institution in the world. We don’t say we implement them perfectly, but comparative organizations mostly don’t have them. Export credit agencies (which are becoming much, much bigger financiers than the World Bank and financing very big projects around the world - including those in China), don’t have the kinds of policies we have. So we have on the books very good policies.

Inspection Panel: About ten years ago (the Bank created an) inspection panel, which allows for people who believe they have been impacted negatively by a World Bank-financed project to seek recourse and go directly to this panel. As Iain mentioned, one of the members is from Georgetown. The others are from the Netherlands and from Ghana. They can and do report directly to our board. They don’t report to management structure. They look for any violations of any of our policies.

We have about 1500 projects on the books at this point. Round about twenty-seven projects have been reviewed by this inspection panel. In some cases - China and elsewhere – the inspectors have found cases where we haven’t complied with our own policies and we’ve had to take action.

This I think is a useful institutional innovation. Again, I don’t think there is any institution has anything comparable. And it is beginning to work quite well. The inspection panel has covered some very complex projects. And it has done, in my judgment, careful, independent due diligence. In some cases they found we haven’t done the right thing, and in some cases we have. But I think it is a useful and very innovative institutional approach.

Community-Driven development: Next, we’ve moved very much to community-driven development. I’m going to comment in a moment on how the Bank works and lends, because being a lender makes things somewhat more complex than if you provide grants. But we have been lending to community-driven development. About 2 billion dollars of our portfolio goes to empowering small communities - everything ranging from agriculture to health to education and many other aspects.

We’ve decentralized the Bank completely. In some places - Mike spoke about South Asia - most of the staff is in the field and some of the staff are local. That is beginning to get us much closer to the sort of detail that frankly we used to miss. We operated at 30,000 feet and didn’t know what was going on. That is changing. I don’t say that it’s changing perfectly but it is changing dramatically. In every one of our resident offices we have NGO liaison officers that deal with civil society. In pretty much every one of those we have a small fund that can go directly to civil society organizations. It’s far too small and we’d like to see it grow, but it is there.

Post-conflict: As Iain mentioned, (post conflict) us something we weren’t involved with ten years or so ago. We’ve moved very much into post-conflict and we have a unit that deals with post-conflict and reports to Judith and me. We’ve focused on some pre-conflict. It’s early days but there’s been very promising work closely associated with human rights issues.

Corruption: Finally, we have tackled the issue of corruption. Corruption, by the way, occurs in developed countries as much as in developing countries. When we blacklist companies they are very rarely from developing countries. They tend to be developed country companies. This is something that Jim Wolfensohn, our president, took on. As Irungu said, 10 –15 years ago we couldn’t have talked about corruption. Corruption was political, human rights was political and we couldn’t come and talk about it! That’s a major change in my view.

So I think the elements are in place of a move towards something that’s not that far away from a common position with Irungu and Mike. There are constraints on us which I’ll come to in a moment.

In terms of the human rights discussion, as Iain said, we are in the midst of some preliminary discussions. I am heading a small task team. Judith is the task manager, and I will ask her to talk about that in a moment.

(The challenge comes in) trying to ground the work with the various internal constituencies in the Bank. In no particular order:

Our legal colleagues are clearly concerned about the articles of agreement. My own instincts tell me that there is a much less rigid interpretation today than 30 years ago. I could not have been here ten years ago, let alone twenty years ago, talking about what we are talking about.

I think there is a closer marriage between political and civil and economic (rights). What we’re trying to judge at this point is not the closeness of that relationship, but where are the boundaries. So I don’t think it’s a question of saying one is on one side, and one is on the other, but asking where those boundaries lie.

Second, we’re working with external affairs colleagues. We have a colleague in Geneva who is very interested, and who is taking a leadership role in Geneva on human rights issues. (He’s) looking at the UN issues - where does the UN position itself and how do we relate to the UN in terms of human rights writ large.

Third is our own social policy group. Ten years ago we had one sociologist. Today, we have (well over) 100 sociologists and socio-anthropologists – probably about 150 staff - who are the core of our work on civil society. They are working on inclusion, working on indigenous peoples rights, working on disenfranchisement, transparency issues and the like. We are trying to expand that number very fast. (It is very very hard to find people to fill the positions.)

Operations: The fourth constituency inside the Bank - and in some ways the most important for us - is operations. We may be big and powerful, as Iain said, but we are $20 billion out of a $37.5 trillion economy globally. We’re more important in smaller countries than we are in big countries. I wish it wasn’t always the case, for in many cases it is some of the larger countries where some of the egregious activities take place. But that is a reality.

In operations, the question which comes back over and over to me – and the one that I have to answer – is “what difference does it make operationally?” If we formally embody issues of human rights in our makeup - if we embody the “rights-based” approach to development - what difference does it really make? And aren’t we doing this at the moment? Can we do more of this?

I think yes. For example, take the legal and judicial reform program which is very innovative in the Bank. The legal department was never ever allowed to provide technical assistance to countries. They are now, and we are moving very fast at providing technical assistance. I was just looking at some stuff going on in Equador. It is just fascinating work, in which our legal department is providing technical assistance on legal issues around spousal abuse, and then working with local social welfare organizations to link them in with the judiciary. I think it’s a fascinating piece of work that really (points to) the future of the Bank in much of this capacity-building.

But there-in lies a real constraint. It links to something Mike talked about. He gave us credit for doing some of this, but didn’t give us credit for doing enough. We could make a major leap but if the demand is not there, you can do all the capacity-building you want with the formal legal system and it’s going to fail. So the question in our mind has constantly been how do we create that demand so that we can move on a much bigger scale?

I don’t think, Mike, that the problems is technical. We recreate and create and recreate our own comparative advantage. When I joined the Bank there were two people working on health care. (Health) now accounts for 23 % of our lending. There was nobody on education. There was nobody working on environment. We have 250 people working on environment today.

That’s not our constraint. The real constraint is how do we create effective demand. And the lesson we have learned is that if you force things on countries that they don’t want, it won’t work. So the question about judicial reform is not the potential for demand, which I think is overwhelmingly large in almost all countries we deal with. It really is whether we can create a conducive environment for creating the demand.

The Board of Directors. The final constituency for us in a way is our executive board of directors. All but two countries in the world are represented at the Bank’s board. (The two that are not represented are Cuba and North Korea, simply because they are not members of the World Bank.) Everyone has a representative, typically drawn from either a Ministry of Development Cooperation or a Ministry of Finance, or in some cases Treasury. That, typically, is the make-up of our board here in Washington.

We have a board of 24 who represent constituencies. Many have said it is unfairly and inequitably distributed. The US is our largest shareholder. It doesn’t have a majority but it is our largest shareholder. We only have two representatives from Africa, which always struck me as a bit unfair by any standards. But that’s linked (the system is linked to) the share-holder concept rather than the stakeholder concept. It is, at a voting level, one dollar one vote not one country one vote.

The board operates more by consensus, but they have a broad range of views about our engagement on this issue. It is like walking on eggshells that have been placed on thin ice. We hear everything from people who say “do” to everyone who says “don’t” and everything in between.

Crafting an approach that would bring our board along is very important. There’s very little I would disagree with about what my colleagues have said about the importance (of human rights) or even the examples they’ve given, both positive and negative. But this is such an important issue that it is inconceivable that we could get away with taking staff decisions or management decisions that the board wouldn’t want to know about.

So we have to engage in an educational process also with our executive board. And I think this needs to rest on whether we meet our objectives of reducing poverty and bringing people out of poverty. (As I said earlier, poverty is) defined both in per capita income terms and access to basic services - but also defined in terms of whether they play a meaningful role in society; whether they’re empowered; whether they feel a sense of self-worth etc. We have made that case. We now need to operationalize it in a way, and then link it with the human rights story.

In terms of our work program finally, one of the things we did was to review and discuss it with comparator organizations – DFID (the UK development aid organization), UNDP, UNICEF. I have looked at this very, very carefully and with the possible exception of UNICEF, I must say that while there is good rhetoric on the books, I don’t see what any of the organizations are doing differently the day after they announce these policies from the day before.

I think that that is an issue that for me. That’s why I need people like Irungu and Mike and Iain to tell us what we might do differently.

Would we do the same things but more of them - which is one suggestion Mike is making? Or are there things we would do differently? And when we are doing them differently, we have to test them against out articles of agreement. Like any organization - like Georgetown University – we are bound by your legal articles of agreement. I don’t see those as being as binding frankly as many people have put on the table. I think ten years ago they were, but I think that’s changing.

Relations with the UN: We’ve had discussions with Mary Robinson. I’ve not met Sergio Vieira de Mello. I know him from other lives and I think he’s a great choice because he brings together the conflict dimension as well.

Certainly the UN has put forward guidelines on linking PRSP (poverty reductions strategy papers) with human rights. They come with four points:

1. More meaningful identification with the poor, with greater focus on the attributes and differential impacts on public policy;

2. Equality and non-discrimination, following on more focused analysis of the attributes of the more vulnerable groups including women; developing strategies for social inclusion.

3. Participation and empowerment; increasing participation at designed decision and implementation stages;

4. Accountability and transparency systems and policies which help to increase these.

We are in alignment on that. I think the difficulty sometimes is how, not whether to do it.

Finally, if I could touch on some of the comments raised by my colleagues. It is indeed on the “how to.” You walk a fine line when you lend money to governments. There are limitations. I can think of two cases that I’ve been personally involved in (one of them with my President) where the Bank made a very low key but positive effort for NGOs that we felt were indeed either in danger or having their rights abused.

There may other cases where there is a judgment call - where we may not add value or cannot achieve the objective. I don’t quite know how to play that, because we are not like most bilateral aid organizations that have behind them a ministry of foreign affairs which has all the diplomatic skills and takes views on how or how not to engage.

One of the ways in which we could perhaps get that, is by in some broad sense thinking of our UN sisters as the equivalent of our Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and working more closely with the UN on these issues. That is something that I think is promising. We need to work much more closely with the UN than we have done. Having said that I think we have started that relationship.

On bringing NGOs and civil societies into the debate on PRSP (poverty reduction strategy papers), I would say first that it’s a requirement for us. I don’t say we’ve done it as well as we need to, but it is a requirement. Mike said it’s an exception not the rule. My sense is that it is closer to the rule than the exception. But I think the quality of which we have done is very variable. Our job is to bring the quality of that discussion up.

Finally, I think, on the rule of law. We can do more. We should do more. But we have to see how we create the demand to do more. In the absence of that it will be difficult.
Let me stop there and ask Judith to say a few words. (applause)

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Judith Edstrom :

I just will say a few words because I think we want to open it up for questions and comments.

I would say that we are very much in alignment with other agencies in terms of looking at what might be a rights-based approach but which we might call “ethical public policy.” I think this has to do with (the way we have) moved with our concept for poverty - from income, to risk safety nets, to a reduction of vulnerability, to an actual issue of dignity. This is something that we are moving to. It is very important but intangible. There is a sense that agencies should work to strengthen the enabling, the capacities of people so they could express their rights.

The human rights area is a complex one because by definition a right is something that is an entitlement that incurs an obligation on someone else. Of course this is open to interpretation.

Let me give you an example. There are individual rights and there is group rights. This comes up in the case of HIV /AIDS. Companies in South Africa, given the extreme nature of the epidemic there, have decided to test all workers. They realize that they need to keep their work force and they need to address this and help them. Certainly in this country it would be a denial of the individual rights of a person to have to submit to such a test and have to be tested for it. But this is where you come into a question of what kinds of rights should apply in different situations and what are the rights of society. This sometimes poses a difficulty. You know between the ACLU and other groups on human rights there is not always a common accord. That poses some problems.

However, I would say that we (at the bank) are moving into this area, because we recognize that the reduction of vulnerability, and the ability of people to take charge of their own lives, is really the most effective course of poverty reduction. Many of us believe that human rights can help the Bank to achieve its primary and fundamental mandate, which is poverty reduction. In addition, poverty reduction achieves human rights for people.

I think that we also grapple with this political/civil versus vs. the economic and social rights - and what have been defined as “process rights” vs. content rights. It’s very important to not get involved in the political domestic affairs, which is what the (Bank’s) articles meant. That is really politics, and that would be inappropriate for an external agency. But what is politics? What is political? What is civil? It indeed is difficult.

We believe, though, that we are taking steps along with those who work in DIFID, UNICEF, UNDP to look at some of the key underlying areas than can help with the achievement of human rights. I’ve been involved in some of the work that a special group has done for the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on human rights and the poverty reduction strategies (PRSP) with Paul Hunt and Manfred Novak and others.

One of the first steps is better analysis. How do policies and programs impact different groups of people - particularly poor people? You can see on our web site (under poverty net) that we are attempting to develop tools and policies to help us understand poverty (and improve the) social impact analysis of policy reforms.

This is a very important first step, because the response to poverty reduction cannot just be legal, or involve the reform of laws as they exist on the books. (For example) we have been dealing with property rights and commercial rights in the past. The property rights of poor people are important civil as well as economic rights, but we’ve had too much bad experience in the past. You change a law, but if the underlying way things get done at the community level, and the “invisible law” operate separately from the rule of law officially, it can really hurt people. You can attempt to have a land-titling program but if there are those who play fast and loose and have inside information to those in power, you will find that poor people who benefited under customary law suddenly do not benefit. This is why better analysis and visibility of some of these challenges become so important in realizing human rights.

We think that non-discrimination and the recognition of vulnerability are very important. And again analysis can contribute to that. We are speaking with one voice with folks who are looking at human rights in this regard and identifying indigenous peoples, people affected by resettlement and so on as important areas to understand. We actually have operational policies in that regard.

Participation, empowerment, the voice of people – these are incredibly important in realizing human rights. In fact I think (they may be) more important than the content rights because they allow people to determine how different rights get realized.

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