This is a superb book, essential reading for anyone interested in how international law is and can be used to temper the negative human rights consequences of economic globalization. David Kinley is a distinguished Australia-based scholar whose extensive academic background is supplemented by his observations as a practitioner and consultant in human rights and development, with and for many international and nongovernmental organizations, especially in Asia. Kinley's perspective is sensible and moderate, not denying the positive impact that globalization can have on human rights but arguing for legal regulation to mitigate its concomitant negative effects. He points out that “uncompromising demands” (p. 23) to minimize globalization's negative effects, such as to eliminate entirely the profit motive, abandon the idea of trade liberalization, or decouple aid from “liberalist economic conditionality,” are simplistic and counterproductive. Rather than try to replace the international capitalist economy with a new economic system, human rights activists should both acknowledge the good it can do and promote legal, policy, and political reforms to control its negative consequences for human rights.
The core of the book consists of three chapters on trade, aid, and commerce. These three chapters provide the reader with up-to-date description and analysis of the human rights laws that already exist and the new laws that could be proposed. Chapter 2, on trade and human rights, covers such topics as the World Trade Organization and its Dispute Settlement Mechanism; trade sanctions; and preferential treatment and conditionality. Chapter 3, on aid, discusses inter alia the “shibboleth” (p. 111) of the 0.7% of Gross National Income (GNI) aid target; debt forgiveness; the International Monetary Fund; the World Bank; the Millennium Development Goals; and the human rights–based approach to development. Chapter 4, on commerce and human rights, covers transnational corporations—with the important caveat that national corporations also (should) have human rights obligations; foreign direct investment and human rights; and corporate social responsibility.
The three core chapters are introduced by a chapter on the complex relationship between economic globalization and human rights. As noted, Kinley does not assume that the effects of globalization on human rights are entirely negative. Indeed, the title of the book deliberately conveys a dual meaning. One meaning, familiar to its critics, is that globalization ought to be civilized, that is, brought under control by law, the state, and international organizations. The other meaning, which critics of globalization may find surprising, is that globalization itself has a civilizing influence; it is not uniformly bad for human rights but can promote them. As Kinley states, “I have argued for recognition, indeed appreciation, of the global economy's role in pursuing the ends aspired to by … human rights standards” (p. 205). He notes, for example, that world poverty has declined since the current period of globalization began (p. 15), and he agrees that economic growth is necessary for the protection of economic human rights. Despite the fact that the parts of the world that best protect human rights are those that have experienced substantial economic growth, from the Western world to East Asia and China to emerging economies such as Ghana and Mozambique in Africa, this is a point that is often forgotten by those who are interested in human rights and development.
Transnational corporations are often the target of harsh criticisms by globalization's detractors, yet Kinley argues that they can promote human rights. They create wealth, jobs, and income; they pay taxes that finance public goods; they promote innovations and development through competition; they help transfer technological and intellectual know-how; and their interdependent commercial operations can help contribute to international peace and stability (p. 158). Similarly, foreign direct investment can contribute to an economic “virtuous circle” (p. 169–170) by its contributions in various ways to domestic economies. Kinley also notes that market liberalization can have positive results for human rights (p. 210). Indeed, he argues strongly that promotion of human rights is—and always has been—a core goal of the international institutions that regulate the world economy, even when they have not been recognized as such and even when officials of such institutions as the WTO “roll their eyes” (p. 91) when human rights are mentioned. In disagreement with those human rights scholars who simply dismiss the profession of economics, Kinley notes that many economists, among them Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes, J. K. Galbraith, and Paul Samuelson, have been concerned with the social justice implications of economic progress.
Kinley's acknowledgment of the positive aspects of trade, aid, and commerce for human rights does not mean that he lets them off the hook for their many human rights abuses, from the 1984 gas leak in Bhopal, India, to mining investments in Congo in 2010. His is a multifaceted, interdisciplinary approach that acknowledges the complex historical relationship among development, law, good governance, and human rights. International human rights law is one important, and as yet underutilized, mechanism to control international capitalism's tendency to overlook social justice in the pursuit of profit. The author is particularly concerned with the human rights lawlessness of trade and investment in insecure, fragile states.
Kinley's analysis is informed throughout by his deep, compassionate, and historically grounded understanding of both the moral and practical problems of realizing economic human rights within the global economy. While acknowledging Thomas Pogge's (World Poverty and Human Rights, 2002) “conscious [conscience?]-pricking assignment of the responsibility better to address poverty to we who are in a position to do something about it,” Kinley also notes that Pogge “is unable to demonstrate how … the current order is directly causing such damage [and] provides very little by way of comprehensive suggestions as to how the current order could be reformed” (p. 105). By contrast, Kinley offers very concrete suggestions—too many to summarize here—as to how to reform and reinforce human rights law in order to regulate globalization. He advocates that human rights standards should “play a substantive role in the formulation of economic policy” (p. 226), in part to remedy the current fragmentation of international law into discrete regimes. This means identifying and reinforcing practical initiatives that permit human rights to permeate the policy wall of economic decision making. He also stresses the role of the state and, above all, the rule of law and good governance in ensuring that economic globalization can and will promote human rights.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough to all scholars, students, practitioners, and policymakers who hope that globalization can improve, not undermine, human rights; it is a must-read. Although Kinley is an international lawyer, his analysis is quite easy to read; its argument for the usefulness of international law does not indulge in legalistic language. Civilising Globalisation would be a useful, engaging, and thought-provoking graduate textbook, not only in courses on international law but also in courses on human rights and/or globalization offered in political science or other disciplines.
