International Economic Governance and Human Rights Accountability

Abstract What the world and our health systems and societies look like in the future depends on the meaning(s) we take from this pandemic, and in turn how we collectively respond. Before the pandemic, we were living in a scandalously unequal world in which one per cent owned as much wealth as the rest of the globe’s population. Worse yet, as Eduardo Galeano suggested, in our upside-down world, this injustice had come to be accepted as a law of nature. This calamity has ravaged the planet with added suffering—some from the disease itself and more that is the result of structural injustice and policies adopted in response. But the disruption in the lives of tens of millions, as well as in the organization of our societies, provides an opportunity for subverting a number of pillars of the upside-down world, and we in the overlapping fields of health justice and human rights have a responsibility to think and act boldly on transformative political possibilities now. In this essay, I set out three lessons and the implications of those lessons. First, we must hold governments to account for the disparate impacts not only of the virus but of governmental responses to the virus. Secondly, if we hope to emerge from this pandemic with meaningful social contracts, it is imperative that we understand health and health systems as integral to democracy. Thirdly, we need to reimagine the architecture of aid, as well as global health and economic governance.

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Global Economic Governance After the Crisis

Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik ◽

10.1111/j.1468-2516.2012.00389.x ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 13 (Supplement) ◽

pp. 1-12 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Jeffry Frieden

Keyword(s):

International Economic ◽

Political Economy ◽

Public Goods ◽

Global Governance ◽

Great Increase ◽

National Level ◽

Economic Governance ◽

Economic Problems ◽

International Public Goods ◽

Global Economic Governance

Abstract It has become common to insist that contemporary international economic problems require a great increase in the extent of “global governance” of economic affairs. This desire, understandable as it may be, confronts a series of major obstacles. First, the normative case for global governance is more difficult to justify, and more complex, than is usually recognized, and requires consideration of both economic and political-economy principles. Second, in practice, the provision of governance at the supra-national level - that is, of international public goods - depends largely on support from powerful and concentrated interests. Third, this dynamic means that the types of international public goods provided, the way they are provided, and the governance structures erected around them are biased in favor of their strongest supporters, and are therefore likely to be a source of continuing controversy.

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