In announcing his financial reform proposals last week, US President Barack Obama pledged: “never again will the American taxpayer be held hostage by a bank that is too big to fail.”…Preventing future massive build ups of risk right across the world’s financial structures must be a central objective of regulatory reform efforts both for financial stability and for the protection of human rights…An essential challenge for the human rights community is to build deeper understanding and specialised technical competency around these complex financial issues in order to more actively engage in policy debates on their implications for the poorest of the world’s people…[refers to AIG, Lehman Brothers]