Righting the Economy
Human rights and economics are not often spoken about in the same breath. Yet increasingly, human rights actors are calling for a shift towards a rights-based or human-rights economy. One that puts the economy truly at the service of communities contending with extreme social and economic inequality, climate catastrophe and corporate abuses.
The economies we live in structure our daily experiences and represent systems which can profoundly affect our ability to enjoy our rights to decent work, adequate healthcare, political participation, freedom from violence and more. This book systematizes academic and practitioners’ analyses and experiences, drawing from different epistemologies, literatures and case studies, to flesh out what a rights-based economy would look like, and the tools and actions – economic, legal, environmental and social – needed to get there.
Matti Kohonen is executive director of the Financial Transparency Coalition, a group of 11 international civil society organisations. Before joining the FTC, he worked for Christian Aid, Oxfam and the Tax Justice Network. He holds a PhD in sociology from the London School of Economics and is the co-editor of Tax Justice: Putting Global Inequality on the Agenda (2009).
Marianna Leite is ACT Alliance’s Global Advocacy and Development Policy Manager. As a lawyer, researcher and activist, she has over 15 years of professional experience across the legal, academic and development sectors. She holds a post-doctorate certificate in Human Rights and Democracy from the Faculty of Law of University of Coimbra and a PhD in Development Studies from Birkbeck, University of London.