Jubilee Scotland > Fair Rules UN

Ask the Secretary of State for International Development to push for fair rules on debt at the UN meeting in Doha.

The culture of irresponsible lending that has for so long blighted the Global South has turned on its makers. And - just as with the debt defaults of the 1980s – it is only at the point where we in the rich world – and particularly our banks – are affected, that we use the word 'crisis'.

It is upsetting to see how much the media reflect the interests of the world's rich rather than poor in this way. But there is no escaping the fact that the current situation has created an opportunity for us to move towards the strong international laws on credit and debt we will need if we are to truly end debt slavery.

Doha is an opportunity for a fair playing field

This Saturday (15th November) the 'G7 plus' leaders will meet in Washington. This gathering has been hyped in many quarters as a 'Bretton Woods Two' meeting, that will re-build the whole financial architecture of the world. But what kind of new architecture can we expect from a self-selecting clique of the world's richest countries, who meet in haste and secrecy, without time for input from civil society or the Global South?

Part of the reason for this haste is to pre-empt – and perhaps weaken – a meeting that has genuine legitimacy to tackle these issues, the meeting of the United Nations on Finance for Development in Doha on the 29th of November. This meeting includes representatives from the poor of the world, but they will need support from a country like the UK if they are going to make any headway.

Ask the Secretary of State for International Development to push for strong and fair new rules on debt at the UN meeting in Doha, by submitting the e-mail below.

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Dear Secretary of State, I am writing in advance of the UN Finance for Development conference in Doha in November, to request that you push for strong and fair international rules to ensure that credit and debt are managed in the interests of people, and not the other way around. The recent financial crisis has shown to the Global North what has been known in the Global South for decades, that the international financial system has been abused for many decades, with huge cost to human livelihood. Many of the world's poor are still burdened with the debts that were knowingly issued to dictators, or those loans that were pushed on them aggressively by banks following the oil shocks of the 1970s. And while the repayment of global debt continues to demand more money than is actually in circulation, there can be no global prospect of sustainable economic or developmental growth. The United Nations is a body with the legitimacy to implement international rules for the prevention of future debt abuses, for example through a tribunal or arbitration process examining the legitimacy of past and present poor-country lending. I would therefore urge you to do everything in your power to advance this agenda at the Doha meeting, and to help thereby to create a world in which credit and debt are put in the service of human well-being, rather than working against it. Yours sincerely,

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