Global Project Finance Human Rights And Sustainable Development

Many infrastructure projects around the world are funded through the project finance method, which combines private financing with public sector backing from multilateral finance institutions such as the World Bank. This examination of the theoretical and practical implications of such funding begins with a discussion of the relationship between the financial structuring of these projects and finance, policy and legal disciplines, especially in the form of investment law, human rights and environmental law. A number of case studies are then examined to provide practical insights into the application (or otherwise) of human rights and sustainable development objectives within such projects. While these theoretical perspectives do not conclude that the project finance method detracts from the application or implementation of human rights and sustainable development objectives, they do highlight the potential for the prioritisation of investment returns at the expense of human rights and environmental protection standards.

What are the implications of project finance for human rights and sustainable development?

Global Development and Human Rights analyses global efforts to implement long-term goals that seek to promote the health, happiness, and freedoms of individuals.

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.

"From 2000 to 2015 the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) mobilized external aid to finance life-changing services in the global South. However, in doing so, the organization failed to meet the challenges often associated with human rights initiatives, which are to make underprivileged communities independently prosperous, equitable, and sustainable. In Global Development and Human Rights, Paul J. Nelson assesses the current thirty-year effort to make transformative changes in the global South by exploring how this disconnect from human rights weakened the MDGs reputation as a successful aid organization. To overcome the failings of the MDGs, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) was formed in 2016 with the intention of managing the issues fundamentally ignored by the MDGs. Drawing on twenty-five years of research on development goals, human rights, and the organizations that promote them, Nelson reasons that transformative change comes from national and local movements, and shows how human rights can offer leverage and political support that help drive transformative national initiatives."--

Situating the global poverty divide as an outgrowth of European imperialism, this book investigates current global divisions on environmental policy.

Property as a human rights concern is manifested through its incorporation in international instruments and as a subject of the law through property-related cases considered by international human rights organs. Yet, for the most part, the relationship between property and human rights has been discussed in rather superficial terms, lacking a clear substantive connection or common language. That said, the currents of globalisation have witnessed a new era of interrelation between these two areas of the law, including the emergence of international intellectual property law and the recognition of indigenous claims, which, in fundamental ways, speak to an engagement with human rights law. This collection starts the conversation between human rights lawyers and property lawyers and explores analytical approaches to the increasing relationship between property and human rights in a global context. The chapters engage with key theoretical and policy debates and range across three main themes: The re-evaluation of the public/private divide in the law; the tensions between the market and social justice in development and the balance between the rights of individuals and those of communities. The chapters adopt a global, comparative perspective and engage in case studies from countries including India, Philippines, Brazil, the United States, the United Kingdom and includes various regions of Africa and Europe.

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