About the Event
In June 2024, the United Nations launched a landmark report on the pitfalls of 'growthism', or the belief that our fight against poverty can only succeed if we can increase the aggregate output of the economy. This ideology takes attention away from the need to increase access to those goods and services that improve wellbeing and to reduce the production of that which is unnecessary or even toxic.
This session will delve deep into the ideas and findings of this report, highlighting the need to shift our focus from a profit-driven economy to a human rights-driven economy that does right both by people and the planet.
Date and Time
21st November 2024 | 2 - 3:30 PM CET
Recording
Agenda
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Report Presentation |
Presenter
Olivier De Schutter is the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. An academic specialised in economic and social rights, he was the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food from 2008 to 2014, and a member of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights between 2015 and 2020. Prior to those appointments, he was Secretary-General of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH). He teaches at UCLouvain (Belgium) and at Sciences Po (France). You can access the report he discussed in the session here. |
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| Panel Discussion |
Moderator
Isabelle Ferreras is a senior tenured fellow of the Belgian National Science Foundation and a Professor of Sociology at the Université catholique de Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium) where she teaches at the Department of Social and Political Sciences, at the Institut des sciences du travail and at the Economics School of Louvain. Isabelle is involved as a permanent researcher of the Centre de recherches interdisciplinaires Democracy, Institutions, Subjectivity) and since 2004, she has been an associate of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School where she is now a Senior Research Associate. In the Spring 2017, Ferreras was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts of Belgium. Panelists
Prof. Dr. Nicolas Bueno is a Professor of International and European Law at UniDistance Suisse and Associate Researcher at the Center for Human Rights Studies at the University of Zurich. He is the co-editor of Labour Law Utopias: Post-Growth and Post-Productive Work Approaches (Oxford University Press 2024, open access). He conducted research on labour rights in global value chains and post-growth theories at The London School of Economics, at the Université catholique de Louvain and at the University of Zurich with funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation. He received the Marco Biagi Award 2017 of the International Association of Labour Law Journals for his article ‘From the Right to Work to Freedom from Work: Introduction to the Human Economy’. You can access Nicolas' slides here.
Chidi King is Chief of the Gender, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Branch, part of the Conditions of Work and Equality Department of the International Labour Organization. Before joining the ILO, Ms. King was Director of the Equality Department at the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), where she led work with trade unions on pay equity, the care economy, gender-based violence and harassment at work, women’s leadership, young workers, and rights of migrant workers. A lawyer by background, Ms. King was the senior lawyer of the charity Public Concern at Work (PCaW), where she directly contributed to the drafting of the UK’s Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, and has served on the Board of PCaW, now known as “Protect”.
Iolanda Fresnillo joined the European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad) in 2019 and has coordinated its debt justice work as Policy and Advocacy Manager since 2021. Prior to this she worked for 10 years as a researcher and campaigns coordinator at Observatori del Deute en la Globalització (ODG) (Spain), and for almost another decade as a consultant for international civil society organisations and local institutions in Spain. She has been engaged in the global debt movement for two decades, as well as in local environmental, feminist and economic justice social movements. Fresnillo holds a Masters in Development and International Cooperation and a degree in sociology, both from the University of Barcelona. |
