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43 Hum. Rts. Q. 1 (2021)

handle is hein.journals/hurq43 and id is 1 raw text is: HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY The Explosion of Household Debt: Curse or Blessing for Human Rights? Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky ABSTRACT The purpose of this article is to contribute to better understanding human rights violations in the context of private debt, focusing specifically on in- dividual and household debt offered by a range of lending actors, whether operating in formal or informal settings. There are two drivers of the rising private indebtedness: first, the flourishing supply side of finance, with de- regulation and increasing financialization being its facilitating instruments; second, the reconfiguration of many human needs for social reproduction that become unmet needs paralleled by a colossal failure of the state to ensure economic, social, and cultural rights for all. This article finds that private debt can be both the cause and consequence of human rights violations. It specifically studies the negative human rights implications of microcredit, health, education, housing-related debts, and abusive col- lection practices, including the criminalization of debtors, consumer and migration-related debts, and debt bondage. Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky is currently coordinator of the postgraduate course on Human Rights and Public Policies in Covid-19 times, Universidad Nacional de Rio Negro, Argentina. He was the United Nations Independent Expert on Debt and Human Rights between 2014 and 2020. This article is based on the thematic report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council on 3 January 2020 (UN Independent Expert on Debt and Human Rights, 2020). The report was informed by extensive consultations and discussions held with scholars, experts and NGOs activists in Princeton, Nairobi, Buenos Aires, and Geneva from October to December 2019, as well as by submissions from states, civil society organizations, scholars, and other stakeholders in response to a call for contributions. These contributions are available at http://www.ohchr. org/EN/Issues/Development/I EDebt/Pages/ReportPrivateDebt.aspx. The author thanks all experts and stakeholders, in particular Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and Open Society Foundation, as well as OHCHR staff, who provided me with valuable inputs. He also wishes to thank Lena Lavinas for her comments on drafts of this article and research material. Human Rights Quarterly 43 (2021) 1-28 © 2021 by Johns Hopkins University Press

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