The imf and Protection of Vulnerable Groups

Viljam Engström

doi:10.1163/15718107-08902001

Abstract

The concept of vulnerability serves to focus protection on those most in need. While prominent in human rights law, protection of vulnerable groups is also increasingly invoked by international economic/financial actors such as the International Monetary Fund (imf). The present article explores how vulnerability enters imf policymaking. The article looks for points of contact of imf practice, with a human rights-based conception of vulnerability. The aim of the article is not to revisit the discussion on human rights accountability of the imf. Instead, the article seeks to identify and analyse the function of vulnerability in the policy-making of the Fund. The protection of vulnerable groups, the article claims, is gradually constituted as part of the law of the imf. For this reason alone, it is of importance to know how vulnerability enters imf policy-making and whom the imf considers vulnerable. Moreover, the imf also becomes a source for the identification of vulnerable groups.

Highlights

Social protection has become a central concern in global policy discourse
If the imf fails to be systematic in raising vulnerability concerns, the endorsement will only undermine the reputation of the imf social protection engagement further
The fierce discourse over imf policy-making underlines the social dimension of its decisions. imf policies have been associated with increased disease, suicide and maternal mortality, for not meeting its own indicative targets and for preventing countries from improving social protection in the long run.[172]

Summary

Introduction

Social protection has become a central concern in global policy discourse. The concept has arisen with “meteoric speed” on the international development. The special position of children in international human rights law derives from the physical characteristics that make children ‘inherently’ vulnerable.[103] It is well acknowledged that women and children bear the heaviest burden of extreme poverty and deprivation.[104] Yet children are mainly present in imf policy-making as a question of promoting equal access to the labour market and gender equality.[105] Illustrative of the Fund approach, in respect of child labour there are studies indicating that a ban on child labour may worsen the economy of particular states, unless accompanied by other measures.[106] The vulnerable position of children as such is only touched upon in occasional of implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, UN Doc. crc/GC/2003/5 (3 October 2003), para. Otherwise member states will invoke their right to expect that the imf does not interfere with what they perceive as domestic concerns.[140]

10 Vulnerability in imf Institutional Law

11 Appreciating imf Endorsement?

12 Conclusion