Third World Debt on trial: the people's debt tribunal

Next week, Jubilee Scotland is holding a ‘people’s debt tribunal’ at the Scottish Parliament. Lidy Nacpil, who will be coming to Glasgow to speak to WDM supporters about climate debt the following day, will attend as an expert witness from the Philippines, calling for her country’s debt to be cancelled.

I spoke to James Picardo (JP), campaigns director at Jubilee Scotland to find out more about the debt tribunal and how debt campaigners from the global south are linking the need to cancel unjust debts with climate justice.

Tell me a bit about ‘the people’s debt tribunal’. Where did the idea come from and how will it work?

JP: The idea of the debt tribunal has been around as long as the debt campaign. Many debt campaigners believe that some kind of 'debt court' will be needed to resolve the many historical cases of illegitimate and unjust debt. Until one exists, people's tribunals are the debt campaign's best form of 'direct action'.

The format is that we will have a representative of a debtor country asking for their country's debt to be cancelled, then a representative of a creditor saying why it shouldn't. Independent experts will feed in and be available for questioning by the audience. At the end people will vote on whether they think the debt should be cancelled.

I see you have someone from the World Bank as an expert witness. Were they happy to take part in the tribunal?

JP: Well we did ask for someone from the Bank – not as an expert witness but as one of the arbitrating parties - but they haven't got back to us. So we will have an actor representing World Bank positions. It's possible to do this in quite an authentic way because the World Bank do produce an awful lot of documentation justifying their positions!

Can you explain how an international debt tribunal would work, and how it would help countries struggling to pay off massive debts?

JP:  There's no consensus among debt activists internationally on what format such a body would take – but there's general agreement that one is needed! The key principles are that it should be fair and transparent. Anywhere a creditor and debtor can get together and decide what debts are unjust and unpayable would be progress on the current state of affairs where sovereign debtors have to go before creditor-panels like the Paris Club cap in hand. This was a key Jubilee 2000 ask but it went off the agenda when one-off debt cancellation was agreed to. It's a shame – it could have saved us a lot of problems in the north as well, recently.

What role can a small country like Scotland play in the development of an international debt tribunal?

JP: Scotland has a brand new arbitration act, and a brand new arbitration centre. This was mainly put in place to make Scotland more attractive for business, but we believe it can be put to a far better use by promoting Scotland as a place where debtor countries could meet creditors and agree to cancellation. It's not an end goal because really we would want these meetings to take place in the global south – but it's a step in the right direction.

How has your campaign been received in the Scottish Parliament and amongst MSPs in Scotland?

JP:  Very well. There's a really positive reflex in Scottish politics towards Scotland doing things differently, and better, which really helps.

Lidy Nacpil from the Philippines, coordinator of Jubilee South, will be a witness at your debt tribunal event. How will cancelling the Philippines’ debt to the World Bank improve people’s quality of life in the Philippines?

JP:  The World Bank imposes development from without so, behind the rhetoric, the resulting benefit falls to external parties: investors and so forth. Losing the World Bank would enable countries like the Philippines to promote their own discussion about poverty and how they want their society to be, without the one-size-fits-all solution from the Bank, which would in turn help pay off the other debts.

Increasingly, debt campaigners from the global south like Lidy Nacpil talk about ‘ecological debt’ and ‘climate debt’ as something that industrialised nations ‘owe’ to developing nations. What do you understand by these terms, and is climate debt something that the jubilee debt movement in the UK will be campaigning on in the future?

JP:  What Lidy and her colleagues keep doing, which is so important, is to keep inverting these terms like debtor and creditor, because they're historically totally upside down. On so many levels it is we who owe the south, because of slavery, extraction, and now climate, which makes it a nonsense to talk about 'debt forgiveness' of these countries.

It's vital to keep it in mind for climate change particularly. Otherwise, if we talk about reducing carbon emissions without bearing in mind the historic context, we risk making lower and middle income countries pick up the tab for our past emissions.

Lidy Nacpil, expert witness at the people's debt tribunal event will be speaking on climate debt in Glasgow the following evening with Liz Murray from WDM and James Picardo from Jubilee Scotland. Follow this link to find out more

The People’s Debt Tribunal takes place at the Scottish Parliament on 5th October. Email: james@jubileescotland.org.uk for more information.