Publication : Press Release

GENEVA (29 September 2015) – The United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, has called on the World Bank and its member States to adopt a new and consistent approach to human rights. “For most purposes, the World Bank is currently a human rights-free zone. In its operational policies, in particular, it treats human rights more like an infectious disease than universal values and obligations,” Alston says in a new report* published online on the approach to human rights by the World Bank, the most important international actor on poverty alleviation. The report, which will be officially presented to the UN General Assembly on 23 October, explains that the biggest single obstacle to better integrate human rights into the work of the World Bank is “the anachronistic and inconsistent interpretation of the ‘political prohibition’ contained in the Bank’s Articles of Agreement.” “They invoke the Articles of Agreement, which were adopted in 1945, and argue that this clause not to interfere in States’ political affairs effectively prohibits the Bank from engaging with issues of human rights,” the expert says. However, he stresses, “these Articles were written more than 70 years ago, when there was no international catalogue of human rights, no specific treaty obligations upon States, and not a single international institution addressing these issues.”

Information Source : “The World Bank is a Human Rights-Free Zone” – UN expert on extreme poverty expresses deep concern

• OHCHR