Rana S. Gautam Human Rights Practices during Financial Crisis. 2019. Palgrave Macmillan

Amidst the current global pandemic crisis, there are cries of despair warning about the weakening protection of the most basic human rights, such as access to food,  water, and sanitation. There is a worldwide agreement that the global economy is facing unprecedented disruptions that will have lingering effects; their real negative effects are yet to be fully realised. Current emerging trends make us deliberate on how governments will shape their long-term economic reform policy agendas in their efforts to revitalise the economy and evaluate the extent to which these agendas will affect their human rights practices. 

Human Rights Practices during Financial Crisis is a contribution by Rana S. Gautam to a newly emerging sub-field in financial crisis academic research, one that focuses on the impact of the systemic economic downturn on governments’ human rights practices. Joe Blau, a social policy scholar at Stony Brook University, USA and Joel Simmel, an associate professor at Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, USA have both described it as a sophisticated and timely piece that teaches an awakening lesson about ‘distributional implications of financial crises’.

Using quantitative research methods and statistical analysis, the book argues that people in low-income countries experience a disproportionate deterioration of their human rights in the wake of financial distress. Gautam focuses on how women’s economic rights and women’s physical integrity rights were negatively affected by governments’ economic reform strategies implemented between 1981 and 2010 in 46 low-income countries during systemic banking crises. However, his ideas regarding the impact of such reforms on human rights may be applied to a wider set of social stratification factors, such as race, ethnicity, and disability.

BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE GLOBAL ECONOMY 

The book is placed within a growing body of literature bridging the gap between human rights and global finance. Gautam builds on the capability approach which proposes a normative evaluation of individual wellbeing, public policy, and social arrangements, and to focus our attention on individuals’ capabilities, freedoms, and opportunities for life realisation. 

In advancing a human rights framework grounded in the principle of non-retrogression, Gautam supports an alternative regime for regulating global financial markets based on a human rights framework. In short, the concept of non-retrogression is described as a ‘prohibition on backwards steps’ with regard to human rights. Applying the principle of non-retrogression states would ensure that no policy shall be enacted and executed if it would result in cutting back human rights which have already been granted. The author explains that policy reforms adopted in times of financial crises must not in practice result in limiting those socio-economic rights and freedoms that people used to enjoy. 

SCRUTINISING GLOBALISATION

With the advance of globalisation, public and academic reasoning and discourse on social, political, and economic matters have been revolving around concepts of international bodies, particularly, international financial institutions. The book challenges this status quo mindset and shifts the focus to domestic political economies. It argues that political institutions and interest groups within a country are important forces in determining the outcome of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank programmes.

This proposition is rather informative in present times. COVID-19 and the response to this pandemic brought the concept of the state to the fore, as people look to their respective governments to deliver viable solutions. Even international organisations when addressing the issue of the ongoing healthcare crisis focus their narrative on sovereign states and their response to the current pandemic. Concerns over the economic slowdown crippling the entire global community were voiced by the IMF, indicating that for the first time since the Great Depression, both developed and developing countries suffer from an emerging recession. An economic depression in the wake of COVID-19 is now a reality to be addressed, and solutions are sought from heads of state and their governments rather than from non-state actors, such as financial markets or global corporations. 

POLITICS: WHO GETS WHAT, WHEN, HOW

Gautam boldly proposes that in times of crises, policymakers do not implement a rapid policy response. Action is only taken when the crisis gathers momentum and its consequences materialise. He suggests that during economic downturns, inequalities among groups become apparent.  Thus, it is difficult to find a balance between competing interests in society.

The notion that in a society there are numerous competing interests at play refers to the fact that different groups in society pursue different aims. Simply put,  if we think of the current healthcare crisis ignited by the COVID-19 pandemic there is a balance to be found between the need for safety measures and containment of the spread of the virus, and the need to re-open business as soon as possible to ensure that the economy is not vitally hindered. Similarly, during any financial downturn that human evolution has seen thus far, governments have been struggling to balance between they need to offer bailout to big corporations at the expense of taxpayers.

The book argues that immediate reform agendas are dominated by macroeconomic stabilisation. Such strategies achieved once the stronger groups will manage to shift the burden of consequences of the crisis on the weaker groups. In turn, they have little regard for human rights. 

BALANCE OF POWER AND WINING INTERESTS

Gautam’s argument resonates with social theories of power structure and power relations. One way of understating his proposition is by identifying who has power to influence decision making in any given society at any given time. It is agreed that we inhabit a world where capitalism became triumphant; followingly, power lays within those groups who substantially control the global capital. 

Historically, in patriarchal societies men have been controlling capital; hence the power to influence politics and policy initiatives laid in their favour. Power structures in patriarchal societies are shaped in such a way that allows some (particularly white upper- and middle-class men) to be placed in an advantageous position at the expense of others, primarily women, and members of other ethnic and religious backgrounds. The author claims that politically stronger groups succeed in disproportionately shifting the burden of the cost of the crisis onto the weaker ones. Hence, gender, race, class, geography, and other stratification indicia will play a role in the outcomes suffered by an individual in a society affected by financial shock. 

The views advanced in the book resonate with the current realities we face. Research led by the University of Newcastle shows that recent loss of employment among Australians is more prominent across non-metropolitan areas which are deemed particularly at risk of financial and social distress.  In the United States, amidst COVID-19, unemployment reached a peak for the first time following the 1930s Great Depression. Non-degree educated adults occupying lower-paid jobs face a more precarious position, compared to their degree-holder peers. Equally, there are prevailing inequalities in terms of financial wellbeing on grounds of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation. This is because those groups have historically suffered from a negative bias being exercised against them and having been victims of systemic discrimination and infringement upon their basic socio-economic rights. 

In the United Kingdom, people claiming unemployment benefits recently hit a record high. Despite the government’s wage subsidy scheme, economists fear a steady increase in unemployment rates in the coming months, predominately among previously disadvantaged individuals. 

At the international level, countries affected by civil and armed conflict, such as Libya, Syria, and other nations across the Middle East and North African region, as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan, face a greater risk of economic decline which, in turn, leads to heightened social unrest and furtherance of their incapacity to respond to the pandemic. 

TAKING STOCK AND RECOMMENDATIONS 

At first glance, Gautam’s book is one among many works in the literary arsenal on human rights that advocates for a human rights framework-based policy reform agenda. It restates what is now a widely recognised (at least on a theoretical level) fact: the creation of long term and sustainable prosperity requires effective rule of law, justice, and individual freedoms at both domestic and international level. 

Nonetheless, its uniqueness and relevancy lie in its ability to re-question the role of the state in a globalised world. Gautam successfully argues that strategies and programmes advocated for by international organisations, and the success of their outcomes, rely on states’ appetite and capability of implementation, depending on the political economy realities on the ground. Essentially, the author emphasises that even though international organisations might demand respect for human rights on grounds even in the wake of economic crisis, different countries will have different capabilities to respond accordingly. 

This is particularly illustrative of countries with historically complex and fragile social structures which are a consequence of post-colonial civil and political unrest. Nonetheless, negative trends in human rights practices are observed even among western nations where the 2008 economic downturn brought to the fore populist movements which have been growing momentum over the successive years and ultimately placed populist leaders in positions of leadership. The rise of populism in Europe and the United States fundamentally undermines democracy, equality, and human rights. 

This proposition gains relevancy in the context of the current political reality and makes this book a contemporary read. Amidst COVID-19, governments around the world have adopted different agendas to deal with the virus tailored to their domestic needs. Unfortunately, at the moment of writing, world leaders seem to be struggling to reach a consensus on the most appropriate way to fallout holistically and inclusively address the healthcare crisis and the resulting economic fallout. 

Books like Human Rights Practices during Financial Crisis serve to bring our attention to the fact that when the international system is facing a structural shock, states tend to be inwards looking, hence, paving the way to the rise of nationalism and isolationism at the expense of justice and human rights. 

Victoria is a full-time law student and part-time market intelligence research assistant. She was born and raised in Moldova shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union. From an early age, she hoped of living the "democratic dream" of the West. She pursued a university degree in the UK and now holds an MA in International Relations and Sociology awarded by the University of Aberdeen. She is currently studying the accelerated LL.B in Aberdeen. Following graduation she intends on undertaking a master's degree and pursuing a career in international law. 

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