Privatizing Human Rights

This open access book outlines the urgent response needed to address contemporary forms of privatization, which are transforming the foundations of our societies and dramatically undermining human rights.

Corporations are being given control over water, healthcare, housing, public transportation, child welfare services, elder care, and more. Across the world, as investors seek new returns and states cope with public finances devastated by tax cuts, unsustainable debt, and the rising costs of the climate crisis, new forms of privatization are being promoted by governments, consulting firms, international financial institutions, and development actors as the answer. Their pitch is based upon a mythology that extols the virtues of an idealized market while ignoring the heavy human rights costs incurred.

Building on the latest evidence and in-depth case studies, this book shows how the touted 'efficiency' of the private sector is often predicated on increasing fees, reducing services, destroying good jobs, and the highly predictable exclusion of many users. Privatization generally costs the public more money, marginalizes democratic decision-making and accountability, and transforms citizens from rights-holders into customers.

Drawing from successful campaigns and fresh analysis, the authors develop an approach designed to enable human rights actors, including courts, UN bodies, and NGOs, to move beyond an all too common agnosticism towards privatization. The starting points are that privatization is inherently retrogressive in human rights terms and that universal public services are often the best way for states to fulfil human rights. Whatever mix of public and private is reflected in any given arrangement, governments must retain the degree of control necessary to ensure respect for rights, and the legal, financial and administrative power to do so. The book charts new directions for responding to the ever-growing threat that privatization poses to human rights.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.