On October 15, in the Hague, the World Bank Campaign Europe held a public hearing on the World Bank in cooperation with the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal. The hearing looked at two “cases” regarding economic conditionality and financing for fossil fuel projects.

Expert witnesses included Charles Abugre (Development Economist, Ghana), Maartje van Putten (African Development Bank, Netherlands), Marcos Arruda (Policy Alternatives for the Southern Cone, Trans National Institute), Francesco Martone (Senator, Italy) and Medha Patkar (National Alliance of People’s Movements, India).

Drawing from the testimonies and its own experience and analyses, the Panel’s draft statement includes recommendations that:

a. There is a need and urgency to build upon local resistances and alternatives to the dominant economic free-trade and growth oriented paradigm, in order to strengthen alliances and movements, while confronting World Bank culture and ideology, challenging its political and economic role;

b. Commons are for the common good and not for corporate profit. Therefore, the Bank should abstain from supporting the privatisation of the commons and of life-supporting resources;

c. Socio-economic audits of the World Bank should be undertaken and supported through similar Hearings and Tribunals. In cases of conflicts generated by World Bank projects or policies, a moratorium might be established to enable fair and informed resolutions of the conflicts;

d. The concepts of social and ecological debt should be further developed and operationalized by organizing a session of the PPT on the historical, social, ecological and illegitimate debt;

e. Parliaments and governments should initiate independent debt audits in order to identify historical responsibilities, and the social, economic and environmental , as well as juridical implications of debt for peoples’ rights and self-determination.

For more information, see www.worldbankcampaigneurope.org.

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