Civil society urges G20 to focus on rights at financial and climate negotiations

The Center for Economic and Social Rights, the Center of Concern, CIVICUS, DAWN, IBASE and Social Watch prepared a statement to urge G20 leaders ensure the centrality of human rights norms and principles in their decision-making on financial regulation and climate change during their upcoming Summit in Cannes, France. These civil society organizations called others to endorse the statement before Monday.

Large-scale deprivations of human rights stemming from the financial and economic crises are not inevitable, natural phenomena, wrote the representatives of signatories. According to them, the G20 agenda in Cannes provides a unique opportunity for governments —individually and in concert with one another— to choose alternative, human rights-centered paths to a sustainable, resilient and above all just global economy. 

The document, titled Joint Civil Society Statement to the Group of 20 Leaders on Embedding Human Rights in Financial Regulation, reminds the chiefs of State and Government that “even in the policies of a most eminently economic nature, their duties to respect, protect and fulfill the economic, social, cultural, civil and political human rights, including the right to development, do not cease, but should take primacy in every commitment they undertake.”

The civil society organizations demand in the text “action” on issues such as the “endorsement of worldwide stimuli measures according to human rights principles”; “reforms to prevent speculative activity in financial markets from undermining the enjoyment of human rights”; limits to “the damage to public funding of financial institutions that collapse due to excessive risk-taking”; “regulations of bank capital requirements consistent with human rights standards”; “agreement to increase the relative fiscal pressure on the banking sector and to cooperate to increase transparency and mutual accountability in revenue mobilization”; and “an agreement to drastically reduce greenhouse emissions which contribute to climate change”.

The signatories warned that “the world was at no point close to a ‘recovery’ from the human rights toll of the financial crisis” that began three years ago. “Poverty and inequality have increased, and economic growth, where it did take place, has been largely jobless, wageless and unevenly distributed to the wealthiest sectors of society,” they wrote.

“As the world braces for what seems like another coming economic recession, countries and households barely able to cope last recession are now in an even worse situation, with negative consequences for fundamental human rights in rich and poor countries alike,” they added.

“Only an enduring commitment to respect, protect and fulfill legally-binding human rights obligations enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and core international human rights treaties can provide the basis for reforms to ensure a more sustainable, resilient and just global economy,” alert the civil society organizations to the G20.

That commitment should force the G20 governments “to stimulate their economies” and disarm “the premature move towards austerity and the consequent reductions in aggregate demand”, and to “progress in the regulation of commodity derivatives trading” that is “the main reason behind the spikes in food and energy prices that have increased hunger and malnutrition”.

The G20 should also promote steps to prevent that “companies that took undue risks will not again have to be bailed out with public funding” and “to reduce the size and complexity of systemically important financial institutions, including through direct regulatory intervention to break up large firms.

The civil society representatives asked the governments to “take measures which ensure their financial sectors pay their fair share” with “”the implementation of financial transaction taxes and to express a clear commitment to use this newly-generated revenue to fulfill their human rights obligations –at home and abroad”.

The statement also called to take on “serious commitments […] to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adopt greener technologies”. Their absences are “fast becoming a huge human rights issue”, because they “continue to trigger weather-related natural disasters, subjecting vulnerable and marginalised communities to increased risk as well as threatening the earth’s fragile biodiversity”.

The initial signatories of the statement are the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR), the Center of Concern, CIVICUS, Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), IBASE and Social Watch.

[Endorsement must be sent to conf_moderator@coc.org by Monday, October 31st, 2011.]

Statement with signatures.pdf

Source: Social Watch