ABSTRACT
In order to understand how the various 'players' on globalisation have impacted on health and human rights over time, and continue to do so, we will begin by taking a closer look at those fateful decisions taken at Bretton Woods in 1944. However, by 1968, the belief that the Bretton Woods committee could realistically run a global and stable monetary system based on fixed interest rates, with the US dollar as the only permitted international currency, was beginning to appear less and less plausible. The chapter examines the issue of the total impact of the Bretton Woods institutions on human rights as a whole. It is becoming increasingly clear that developed nations' financial power over the less developed countries (LDCs) is by no means diminishing. Even the United Nations (UN) itself is becoming increasingly dominated by it. If human rights anywhere come into conflict with these, then the banks and corporations dominate.
