Poverty, Debt, And Dependency: Rethinking The Legality Of Global Economic Governance Through The Lens Of Justice
- IJLLR Journal
- 37 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Sunny Yadav, Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar
ABSTRACT
The modern global economy, as far as can be understood, runs on a dense web of institutions, treaties, and financial practices. These are meant to steady markets and get states to work together. But these same structures often end up reinforcing inequality and keeping cycles of poverty and dependence alive, especially across the Global South, which is a huge problem. Debt obligations, conditional lending, and rigid trade rules, which pull scarce resources toward repayment and away from welfare and health, often squeeze states’ ability to prioritise welfare and health. This study examines the paradox of global economic governance by asking whether the existing legal framework aligns with a real vision of justice. It uses a range of approaches, combining doctrinal analysis of debt, trade, and institutional law with insights from political economy and theories of justice. Rawls’ principles of fairness, Sen’s capability approach, and critical perspectives from Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) provide a foundation for evaluating how governance shapes policy space and human rights. Argentina’s debt litigation, the Asian Financial Crisis, African debt relief programmes, such as the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative, and the Greek austerity measures serve as case studies that uncover recurring gaps in justice. These examples suggest how fragmented legal rules, creditor dominance, and one-size-fits-all remedies worsen social and economic vulnerabilities. So the paper argues that justice in global governance requires reordering priorities, protecting socio-economic rights, ensuring fairer decision-making, and establishing predictable mechanisms for restructuring. Concrete reforms include human rights-based debt sustainability assessments, rebalancing the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank’s governance structures, and cultivating South-South financing initiatives, which receive less attention than they deserve. Such changes are necessary if globalisation is to transcend market logic and embody values of justice, solidarity, and human dignity, even though they are politically difficult to achieve.
