Minding the Gap: Global Finance and Human Rights

Ethics & International Affairs, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 183-210, 2011

Sydney Law School Research Paper No. 11/37

31 Pages Posted: 5 Jul 2011 Last revised: 28 Jun 2012

See all articles by Mary Dowell-Jones

Mary Dowell-Jones

University of Nottingham Human Rights Law Centre

David Kinley

The University of Sydney - Faculty of Law; Doughty Street Chambers

Abstract

The workings of global finance are like that part of the iceberg beneath the waterline – vast, unseen and, for many, unknown. The interaction of global finance with human rights is especially opaque. The globalization of each phenomenon has occurred very largely independently of the other. Even the recent surge in interest in the global economy and human rights has been heavily focused on the real economy and on what (non-banking) corporations do and how they behave. The particular dimension of interactions between finance and human rights has, by and large, been a blank space. In this article the authors (one from the field of finance, the other from human rights) seek to bridge the gap in understanding, perspective and practice between the two fields by investigating actual and potential linkages in respect to four specific features of global finance - two financial products: bonds and derivatives; and two financial processes: risk management and procyclicality. These have been chosen as an illustrative sample of the complex and diverse ways in which the global financial system interacts with human rights. Although these products and processes played an important role in the recent global financial crisis, and although the interface between global finance and human rights is extensive, they have not so far featured on the human rights agenda or been the subject of detailed human rights critique. As such they provide an overview of the types of human rights issues in the financial sector which have so far been hidden from view. The paper therefore constructs an argument as to why the bridging of the gap is important and provides pointers as to how it can be done.

Keywords: global finance, human rights, corporate social responsibility, global financial crisis, risk management, bond markets, derivatives

JEL Classification: K10, K30, K33

Suggested Citation

Dowell-Jones, Mary and Kinley, David, Minding the Gap: Global Finance and Human Rights. Ethics & International Affairs, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 183-210, 2011, Sydney Law School Research Paper No. 11/37, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1878249

Mary Dowell-Jones

University of Nottingham Human Rights Law Centre ( email )

Law and Social Science Building
University Park
Nottingham, NG7 1BB
United Kingdom

David Kinley (Contact Author)

The University of Sydney - Faculty of Law ( email )

New Law Building, F10
The University of Sydney
Sydney, NSW 2006
Australia

Doughty Street Chambers ( email )

10 Doughty Street
London WC1N 2PL
United Kingdom

HOME PAGE: http://https://www.doughtystreet.co.uk/

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