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6 Yale Hum. Rts. & Dev. L.J. 161 (2003)
Staged Cities: Mega-events, Slum Clearance, and Global Capital

handle is hein.journals/yhurdvl6 and id is 163 raw text is: Note Staged Cities: Mega-events, Slum Clearance, and Global Capital Solomon J. Greenet Somehow, when the fair became part of the city, it did not work like the fair. -Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities' I. INTRODUCTION In 1991, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) held their joint international conference in Bangkok, bringing over 10,000 delegates from more than 160 countries to the city. In the months before the event, the Thai government forcibly removed over 2,000 slum dwellers from the areas immediately surrounding the new $90 million Queen Sirikit National Convention Center that hosted the conference.2 Hundreds of shanties in informal settlements were destroyed and a huge metal wall was erected to conceal the devastation left behind.3 Similarly, when the World Bank and IMF held their conference in the Philippines in 1976, President t J.D. candidate, Yale Law School. I would like to thank Professor Amy Chua at Yale Law School, Professor David Dowell at the University of California at Berkeley Department of City and Regional Planning, and Barjor Mehta and the Urban and City Management Team at the World Bank Institute for their helpful guidance throughout my research and writing process. I am also grateful to Ying Ying Li and the editors of the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal for their enthusiasm, patience, and astute comments. As always, Ari Biernoff has been an indispensable source of encouragement, inspiration, and last-minute editing advice. 1. JANE JACOBS, THE DEATH AND LIFE OF GREAT AMERICAN CITIES 25 (1961). 2. See William Branigin, IMF Conference Brings 10,000 to Bangkok, WASH. POST, Oct. 16, 1991, at A7; Philip Shenon, Bangkok Journal: Where Beauty Queens Preen, No Eyesores, Please, N.Y. TIMES, Aug. 21,1991, at A4. 3. See Branigin, supra note 2.