A/HRC/28/59 control, international financial institutions are subject to the scrutiny of public opinion, transnational groups, civil society and member States.40 51. In contrast, while civil society is increasingly monitoring corporations, voters exert less control over private lenders operating in international financial markets and States have so far prohibited private lenders only in exceptional circumstances by legal regulation from providing funds to States or State institutions with a bad human rights record. 41 Market discipline alone provides insufficient incentives for lending that is sensitive to human rights. It looks mainly at debt sustainability and the likelihood that the loan will be repaid, not at the democratic character of a regime, nor its predisposition for human rights abuse. The market does not prevent loans to dictators. On the contrary, once loans are provided to autocratic regimes, the market rather provides incentives to grant additional funds to such a regime, in order to stabilize it and ensure its repayment capacity. Market logic thus becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. V. Next steps 52. Lending to regimes that commit gross human rights violations may contribute to regime consolidation, prolong disrespect for human rights and increase the likelihood of gross violations of human rights. Those conclusions can stand for both official and private financial assistance to Governments. Nevertheless, private lending seems to be more damaging, as it might enjoy lower public accountability compared to lending between States and to loans allocated by international financial institutions. 53. The statistical analysis presented above, which is based on 158 different episodes of authoritarian rule in 91 countries, suggests that net fund transfers may prolong autocratic rule and thus increase the risk of gross violations of human rights. However, each country situation must be assessed individually. The rational choice model presented by the Independent Expert, suggesting the likely causalities and the quantitative data presented, must be checked by case studies that serve to illustrate the causal linkages between the financial aid received and gross violations of human rights perpetrated by authoritarian regimes. 54. According to the argumentation developed in the previous sections, unless lending decisions are subjected to human rights impact assessments, appropriately targeted or mitigated by contractual measures, financial lending can have a persistent impact on authoritarian regimes, making it possible for them to consolidate autocratic rule and perpetuate political exclusion and human rights violations, and reducing the need for political concessions. However, it may sometimes be best not to lend on any condition, as financial inflows could impair the human rights situation, either immediately or over the longer term. 55. States engaged in gross human rights violations not only torture and kill people, but may also impose economic models that violate fundamental social, economic and cultural rights. As Antonio Cassese explained in a paper he wrote in 40 41 16 James H. Lebovic and Erik Voeten in “The costs of shame: international organizations and foreign aid in the punishing of human rights violators, Journal of Peace Research, vol. 46, No. 1 (January 2009), found that multilateral development cooperation commitments showed greater sensitivity to criticism of human rights records by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights compared to bilateral commitments. On how Latin American dictatorships received funds from private lenders see Robert Bejesky and Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky, “Contemporary lessons from Carter’s incorporation of human rights into the financing of Southern Cone dictatorships” in Making Sovereign Financing and Human Rights Work.