The World Bank as a Human Rights-Free Zone

This chapter analyses the World Bank's approach to human rights, which it characterizes as incoherent, counterproductive and unsustainable. In analyzing the reasons for the Bank's aversion to rights, it focuses on the “political prohibition” contained in the Bank's Articles of Agreement and the contorted way in which it has been interpreted to prevent engagement with rights. The result is a policy approach that directly contradicts the international community's consistent recognition of an integral relationship between human rights and development. It also prevents the Bank from putting into practice much of its own policy research and analysis, which points to the indispensability of the human rights dimensions of many core development issues