ABSTRACT
A growing web of political accountability is emerging for the human rights impact of global financial flows. International finance now comprises an unprecedented exchange of trillions of dollars a day, generating a high proportion of value in the world economy. Contemporary financial flows are governed primarily by the norms of free-market capitalism. But in recent decades, principles of human rights and social equity have inspired attempts at increased governance of economic exchange. Human rights campaigns contend that private financial actors may facilitate state abuse and sometimes autonomously impinge on social and economic rights. Although finance is still less regulated than any other flow, a cluster of recent challenges pioneers new mechanisms of human rights conditionality in the core domain of global capital. Conversely, human rights campaigns that have focused previously on trade, aid, and investment may now be applied to the most dynamic sector of the world economy, which could provide increased leverage for the transnational human rights regime (Singh 2000).
