This edited collection addresses some of the most important challenges in contemporary human rights law and practice. Its central theme is the linkage between public finance, particularly budget decisions, and the realisation (or not) of economic and social rights. While much academic and political debate on economic and social rights implementation has focused on the role of the courts, this work places the spotlight squarely on those organs of government that have the primary responsibility and the greatest capacity for giving effect to such rights: namely, the elected branches of government. The major actors considered in this book are politicians, public servants and civil society, with their role in realising economic and social rights the work's key focus. The book thus makes a crucial contribution to remedying the current imbalance in attention paid by economic and social rights scholars to the legislature and executive vis-a-vis the judiciary. Featuring pioneering work by leading experts in the field of human rights and public finance, this multidisciplinary collection will be of great interest to academics, practitioners, public servants and students working in the areas of law, human rights, economics, development and political science.

Finance governs almost every aspect of modern life. Every day, we use the financial system to mortgage our homes, to insure our health, to invest in our futures through education and pension funds, to feed and clothe ourselves, to be paid for our labor, and to help others in need. As the fuelof capitalism, finance has been a major force for human progress for centuries. Yet it has periodically generated disasters too, from the Great Depression to the recent sub-prime mortgage crisis.In writing Necessary Evil, eminent human rights law scholar David Kinley spent ten years immersed in researching finance's many facets - from how it is raised and what it is spent on, to when it is gambled and who wins and who loses - to produce this unique account of how finance works from a humanrights perspective. He argues that while finance has historically facilitated many beneficial trends in human well-being, a sea change has occurred in the past quarter century. Since the end of the Cold War, the finance sector's power has grown by leaps and bounds, to the point where it is now outof control. Oversight of the sector has been weakened by deregulation, as powerful lobbyists have persuaded our leaders that what is good for finance is good for the economy as a whole. Kinley shows how finance has become society's master rather than its servant, and how, as a consequence, humanrights concerns are so often ignored, sidelined or crushed. Using episodes of financial malfeasance from around the globe - from the world's banking capitals to the mines of central Africa and the factories of East Asia - Kinley illustrates how the tools of international finance time and time againfail to advance the human condition. Kinley also suggests policies that can help finance protect and promote human rights and thereby regain the public trust and credibility it has so spectacularly lost over the past decade.An authoritative account of the extraordinary social consequences of the financial system at the heart of the world's economy, Necessary Evil will be an essential tool for anyone committed to making global capitalism a fairer and more effective vehicle for improving the lives of many, and not justproviding for the comfort of a few.

Argues that public finance--the study of the government's role in economics--should incorporate principles from behavior economics and other branches of psychology.

Outlines a human rights-based approach to carbon finance, a framework for mainstreaming human rights into carbon project implementation.

This interdisciplinary volume examines the potential of human rights to challenge economic inequalities and their adverse impacts on human wellbeing.

From the Great Depression in the twentieth century to the Great Recession in the twenty-first, systemic banking crises have been a recurring problem for both developing and developed countries. This book offers a human rights perspective on financial crises vis-à-vis low-income and least developed countries. It systematically analyzes government’s commitment to women’s economic rights and basic human rights during systemic banking crises. The book combines a wealth of data with rich theoretical arguments that weave together distinct but related bodies of literature from international development, human rights, and political economy.

Poor public resource management and the global financial crisis curbing fundamental fiscal space, millions thrown into poverty, and authoritarian regimes running successful criminal campaigns with the help of financial assistance are all phenomena that raise fundamental questions around finance and human rights. They also highlight the urgent need for more systematic and robust legal and economic thinking about sovereign finance and human rights. This edited collection aims to contribute to filling this gap by introducing novel legal theories and analyses of the links between sovereign debt and human rights from a variety of perspectives. These chapters include studies of financial complicity, UN sanctions, ethics, transitional justice, criminal law, insolvency proceedings, millennium development goals, global financial architecture, corporations, extraterritoriality, state of necessity, sovereign wealth and hedge funds, project financing, state responsibility, international financial institutions, the right to development, UN initiatives, litigation, as well as case studies from Africa, Asia and Latin America. These chapters are then theorised by the editors in an introductory chapter. In July 2012 the UN Human Rights Council finally issued its own guidelines on foreign debt and human rights, yet much remains to be done to promote better understanding of the legal and economic implications of the interface between finance and human rights. This book will contribute to that understanding as well as help practitioners in their everyday work. The authors include world-renowned lawyers and economists, experienced practitioners and officials from international organisations.