OVER 30 organizations across Asia, Africa, and Latin American have joined to launch the first International Peoples Tribunal against the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) “for their accountability in public debt accumulation, worsening of the climate crisis, violating rights to basic goods and essential services, transgressing the right to food and causing widespread hunger.”
Lawyer and labor leader Luke Espiritu, one of the tribunal’s prosecutors, said that the event “is holding them accountable and demanding reparations.”
“It is more than just pointing fingers at the IMF and World Bank…The deception is glaring in the way they proclaim their mission to eradicate poverty while pursuing failed measures such as pushing more loans as the solution to crises, including the crisis of climate which developing countries did not cause,” said Espiritu in a statement to the media during the launching of the tribunal recently.
“For decades, the IMF and WB have hidden behind their deceiving façade of development and poverty alleviation. But in reality, their policies have deepened inequality, fostered corruption, and prioritized the interests of wealthy nations over the needs of vulnerable communities,” added Lidy Nacpil, coordinator of Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development (APMDD), which co-organized the event.
According to Nacpil, the tribunal “provides a space to speak truth to power, especially for grassroots and ordinary working people who are often denied access to justice in formal legal systems and processes.”
“In the face of crises of inequality, debt, and climate change, the Tribunal represents a bold attempt to shine a light on the IMF and the World Bank and the adverse impacts of their programs and policies on communities and the environment. It is a call for justice, for reparations, and demanding a new model of development—one that centers on people and the planet, and not driven by profits,” Nacpil said.
The tribunal’s international panel of judges included Filipino lawyer and climate law professor Tony La Vina; Stanford University lecturer Kumi Naidoo; Prof. CP Chandrasekhar of Jawaharlal Nehru University, India; former Malaysia member of Parliament Charles Santiago; Prof. Fadhel Kaboub, senior adviser of Power Shift Africa; Society for International Development senior advisor Manuel Montes; Third World Network Director Chee Yoke Ling; Prof. Anuradha Chenoy of Jindal Global University, India; and Law and Society Trust (Sri Lanka) Executive Director Sakuntala Kadirgamar.
The organizers described the gathering as a “historic moment” for social justice movements to “charge and prosecute the two institutions for the economic and social harm they have inflicted on countries and communities across the Global South.”
Meanwhile, Nacpil said that for the defense of the IMF and the WB, they have also notified the latter’s office in the Philippines.
According to the organizers, the tribunal’s first session in Manila will be followed by sessions in Nepal, India, Africa, and Latin America.
The final verdict will be announced in April 2025 during the Spring Meetings of the IMF and the WB in Washington DC. | Samar Chronicle via Ronald O. Reyes
