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Hedge Funds Have Human Rights Too

The latest in corporations are people too:

Hedge funds have been known to use hardball tactics to make money. Now they have come up with a new one: suing Greece in a human rights court to make good on its bond payments.The novel approach would have the funds arguing in the European Court of Human Rights that Greece had violated bondholder rights[.]

It's probably just a semantic question (this may be the court with jurisdiction over the subject matter), but it is certainly funny, in a strange way, to see hedge funds suing in a human rights court. The optics are not the best. The legal argument goes as follows:

Legal experts suggest that the investors may have a case because if Greece changes the terms of its bonds so that investors receive less than they are owed, that could be viewed as a property rights violation — and in Europe, property rights are human rights.

(Emphasis supplied.) Ron Paul might say "We are all Europeans now!" And Mitt Romney might consider apologizing for America not agreeing that property rights are human rights.

Speaking for me only

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  • Display: Sort:
    We are all hedge funds now? (5.00 / 1) (#3)
    by Edger on Thu Jan 19, 2012 at 09:11:30 AM EST
    urk...

    Bahahahahaha (5.00 / 1) (#5)
    by Militarytracy on Thu Jan 19, 2012 at 10:48:08 AM EST
    Uhhh...yeah....basically

    Parent
    Good luck convincing a European Court (none / 0) (#1)
    by Militarytracy on Thu Jan 19, 2012 at 08:19:12 AM EST
    that hedge funds are people too.  Maybe America sold its soul but I haven't seen any indication that Europe has the same problem.  The fact that people take to the streets in Europe too when someone steps on their faces IMO is also a factor in how they didn't allow their leaders to sell all their souls to Goldman Sachs.

    Why is my own nation so despondent about protecting their own rights?  Wish I knew

    Hedge funds make bets though.  They lost.  Can't deal with it?  Go home and bet no more.

    and the rights of the actual human beings (none / 0) (#2)
    by BobTinKY on Thu Jan 19, 2012 at 09:09:07 AM EST
    actually being trampled under the austerity policies of Greece and other debtor EU countries?  Do they have standing in this Court?

    Of course (none / 0) (#4)
    by Abdul Abulbul Amir on Thu Jan 19, 2012 at 10:29:13 AM EST
    .

    Of course property rights are human rights.  It is not that property has rights, it is that humans have  right to property.  The reason theft is a crime is that your right to your property is violated by the theft of that property.

    .