The Jubilee Blog

Poor Countries in the Red and Trying to Fix their Green Problems

By Raina Davis

In his monthly Deep Green Column for Greenpeace, Rex Wyler argued against a plan presented by executives at the World Economic Forum to increase international debt by 100 trillion US dollars. He discussed the human and ecological implications of extended debt, especially in developing countries, and the injustice of large banks profiting from loans based on synthetic currency, money essentially created "out of thin air."

By loaning currency rights to national treasuries, the bankers create $100 trillion with a few computer keyboard strokes. Then, they loan the fabricated money, collect interest payments and demand the principal back in real money from the debtors. Interest payments alone on $100 trillion debt (at a modest 5% annual rate) comes to $400 billion a month.

The Global Call for International Debt Court Raised at World Social Forum

As tens of thousands activists gather at the World Social Forum in Dakar, Senegal a new international campaign has launched to combat the global debt crisis.  Defuse the Debt Crisis calls on current G20 Chair, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, to establish an international debt court to prevent the global economic turmoil that results from countries defaulting under unsustainable debts.

Jubilee USA, along with many of our global partners, has endorsed this campaign, as it shares the objectives of our own work on establishing a Fair and Transparent Arbitration Process (FTAP).  The new campaign outlines their priorities and end goal:

“We advocate the creation of a permanent court to ensure a greater coherence and predictability, but see that ad-hoc arbitration courts could be a first step which leads to a more formal institution later on.” www.defusethedebtcrisis.org

This launch is an exciting moment that demonstrates the global energy around the issue, and Jubilee looks forward to working closely with the campaign in the near future.  Join with others around the globe and write to French President Sarkozy, urging him to support and fair and transparent international debt court here!

Photo taken at the World Social Forum where Jubilee Executive Director, Eric LeCompte, participated in the launch of a global campaign for an international debt court to resolve country debt crises – the group of partners working on these issues seen here.