Socio-economic rights were the centre of discussion at the just-ended SADC debt conference, held in Johannesburg, South Africa between 2-3 July. Speaking at the conference stakeholders pointed to the critical importance of ensuring that the pursuit of debt repayment does not override states responsibilities to deliver social economic entitlements.
Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky, the United Nations (UN) Independent Expert on Debt and Human Rights stated: “sustainable debt analysis is still based on the narrow understanding of sustainability, focusing primarily on the ability of the state to pay back its public debt without having to rely on exceptional financing or major policy adjustment. The result is that sometimes a stock of debt may be considered sustainable even if its servicing entails the state’s failure to comply with its human rights obligations because the resources necessary for servicing the debt deprive it of financial means to realise human rights.”