The Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt (CADTM), formerly called the Committee for the Cancellation of the Third World Debt (CCTWD), is an international network of activists founded on 15 March 1990 in Belgium that campaigns for the cancellation of debts in developing countries and for "the creation of a world respectful of people’s fundamental rights, needs and liberties.

Aims

CADTM's main aim is to achieve the cancellation of the external public debt in third world countries, on the belief such cancellation would break a pattern of ever-growing indebtedness by creating economic models which proponents describe as socially fair and environmentally sustainable development. The group describes its supplementary aims as "radically transforming the world's institutional and financial framework"; protection of human rights; strengthening of citizens' movements and activism; and pressuring political leaders to implement human rights guarantees and implementing CADTM and "social movements'" policies. CADTM also aims to support the creation of taxes similar to the Tobin tax, to increase the official aid budget of rich countries to 0.7% of the

GDP Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the total market value of all the final goods and services produced and rendered in a specific time period by a country or countries. GDP is often used to measure the economic performance o ...

, to set up a world tax on large incomes, and for global conversion of military expenditure into social and cultural expenditure. It aims to suspend the

IMF The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution funded by 191 member countries, with headquarters in Washington, D.C. It is regarded as the global lender of la ...

's and

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...

's structural adjustment policies, to radically reform the

World Trade Organization The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland that regulates and facilitates international trade. Governments use the organization to establish, revise, and enforce the rules that g ...

, and to achieve strict control on financial markets and the suppression of

tax haven A tax haven is a term, often used pejoratively, to describe a place with very low tax rates for Domicile (law), non-domiciled investors, even if the official rates may be higher. In some older definitions, a tax haven also offers Bank secrecy, ...

s. CADTM claims to support

women's emancipation A woman is an adult female human. Before adulthood, a female child or adolescent is referred to as a girl. Typically, women are of the female sex and inherit a pair of X chromosomes, one from each parent, and women with functional uteruses ...

, peoples' right to

self-determination Self-determination refers to a people's right to form its own political entity, and internal self-determination is the right to representative government with full suffrage. Self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international la ...

, radical

land reform Land reform (also known as agrarian reform) involves the changing of laws, regulations, or customs regarding land ownership, land use, and land transfers. The reforms may be initiated by governments, by interested groups, or by revolution. Lan ...

s and a general reduction of working hours.

Leadership

, the president of CADTM was historian and political scientist

Éric Toussaint Éric Toussaint is a historian and political scientist with a PhD from the universities of Paris VIII and Liège.Jadžić, Miloš & Miljković, Dušan & Veselinović, Ana (eds.). (2012). ''Kriza, odgovori, levica: Prilozi za jedan kritički disk ...

Publications

CADTM publishes a magazine, essays and a website and organises seminars, lectures, debates, training sessions, international conferences and campaigns. It participates in national and international initiatives and in citizens' mobilisations. It lobbies ministers, members of parliament and other politically active citizens. In September 2018, CADTM's submission to the

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is a department of the United Nations Secretariat that works to promote and protect human rights that are guaranteed under international law and stipulated in the Univers ...

(OHCHR) was accepted as a contribution to the OHCHR's development of "Guiding Principles" for human rights impact assessments for economic reform policies. In January 2019, ''

The Economic Times ''The Economic Times'' is an Indian English-language business-focused daily newspaper. Owned by The Times Group, ''The Economic Times'' began publication in 1961 and it is sold in all major cities in India. As of 2012, it is the world's secon ...

'' summarised a CADTM article by Qian Benli that criticised the Chinese

Belt and Road Initiative The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI or B&R), known in China as the One Belt One Road and sometimes referred to as the New Silk Road, is a global infrastructure development strategy adopted by the government of China in 2013 to invest in more t ...

as not benefiting ordinary Chinese and being heavily involved in corruption. In February 2019,

Democracy Now ''Democracy Now!'' is an hour-long TV, radio, and Internet news program based in Manhattan and hosted by journalists Amy Goodman (who also acts as the show's executive producer), Juan González, and Nermeen Shaikh. The show, which airs live ...

used a report by CADTM on debt in

Puerto Rico ; abbreviated PR), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, is a Government of Puerto Rico, self-governing Caribbean Geography of Puerto Rico, archipelago and island organized as an Territories of the United States, unincorporated territo ...

to suggest that big holders of Puerto Rican debt, including the investment funds of prestigious US universities, would profit from financing arrangements following

Hurricane Maria Hurricane Maria was an extremely powerful and devastating tropical cyclone that affected the northeastern Caribbean in September 2017, particularly in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, which accounted for 2,975 of the 3,059 deaths. It is the ...

References

{{reflist, 2, refs= {{cite news , last1= Parpart , first1= Eric , title= Belt tightening , date= 2018-07-30 , publisher=

Bangkok Post The ''Bangkok Post'' is an English-language daily newspaper published in Bangkok, Thailand. It is published in broadsheet and digital formats. The first issue was sold on 1 August 1946. It had four pages and cost one baht, a considerable amount ...

, url= https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/news/1512518/belt-tightening , accessdate= 2019-03-05 , archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20180730094040/https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/news/1512518/belt-tightening , archivedate= 2018-07-30 , url-status= live {{cite web , title = About CADTM , publisher = Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt , date = 2007-11-08 , url = http://www.cadtm.org/About-CADTM , accessdate = 2019-03-05 , archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20190305002727/http://www.cadtm.org/About-CADTM , archivedate= 2019-03-05 , url-status=live {{cite news , title= China's OBOR expectations look gloomy: Expert , date= 2019-01-04 , publisher=

, url= https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/chinas-obor-expectations-look-gloomy-expert/articleshow/67377396.cms , accessdate=2019-03-05 , archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20190106103235/https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/chinas-obor-expectations-look-gloomy-expert/articleshow/67377396.cms , archivedate= 2019-01-06 , url-status=live {{cite news , title= Puerto Rico: Vulture Funds to Make a Killing as Judge Approves Deal to Restructure Island's Debt , date= 2019-02-06 , publisher=

, url= https://www.democracynow.org/2019/2/6/puerto_rico_vulture_funds_to_make , accessdate=2019-03-05 , archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20190305010507/https://www.democracynow.org/2019/2/6/puerto_rico_vulture_funds_to_make , archivedate= 2019-03-05 , url-status=live {{cite web , title= Guiding Principles for human rights impact assessments for economic reform policies , date= 2018-09-24 , publisher=

, url= https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Development/IEDebt/Pages/DebtAndimpactassessments.aspx , accessdate=2019-03-05 , archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20190305012405/https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Development/IEDebt/Pages/DebtAndimpactassessments.aspx , archivedate= 2019-03-05 , url-status=live

External links

Official website
Abolition of the Third World Debt Abolition of the Third World Debt