This book is devoted to the 25th anniversary of the United Nations Declaration on the Right to Development. It contains a collection of analytical studies of various aspects of the right to development, which include the rule of law and good governance, aid, trade, debt, technology transfer, intellectual property, access to medicines and climate change in the context of an enabling environment at the local, regional and international levels. It also explores the issues of poverty, women and indigenous peoples within the theme of social justice and equity. The book considers the strides that have been made over the years in measuring progress in implementing the right to development and possible ways forward to make the right to development a reality for all in an increasingly fragile, interdependent and ever-changing world.
Bsrd A. Andreassen is Professor at the Norwegian Center for Human Rights and Director of Research (human rights and development) at the Law Faculty, University of Oslo. --
The chapters in this volume are based on the papers that were presented at the Calcutta seminar organized in March 1992 by the ILA Committee on Lehal Aspects of a New International Economic Order (NIEO). The conference focused on the right to development, in particular its ideas and ideology, human rights aspects and implementation in specific areas of international law. The volume is accordingly organized in three parts. The chapters cover a vast area of subjects, derived from the UN Declaration of the Right to Development. From the developed and underdeveloped world 33 authors discuss topics including: contents, scope and implementation of the right to development; human rights of individuals and peoples; co-operation between the European Community and the Lomé IV states; current developments in investments treaties; refugee protection; development and democracy; concept of sustainable development; environmental issues; protection of intellectual property; transfer of technology; human rights in international financial institutions; and the legal conceptualization of the debt crisis. Professor Oscar Schachter observes in the first chapter that the Declaration continues to be a `challenging subject for legal commentary' for its `detable legal status, its combination of collective and individual rights, its expansive conception of development and its equivocal obligation'. Apart from support, doubts about the concept to the right to development may also be found in this volume.
This book explores the nexus between natural resources ownership and the right to development in Africa. The right to sovereignty over natural resources and the right to development are recognised and protected in an extensive framework of international, regional and domestic instruments. They guarantee people's entitlement to fully and freely utilise their natural resources as a means of subsistence and for economic, social and cultural development. Yet, despite the abundance of natural resources in Africa a majority of the people on the continent remain largely impoverished. This book articulates the central argument that to achieve the right to development in Africa requires appropriate governance of the continent’s natural resources to which the people of Africa are guaranteed sovereign ownership. With case study illustrations from Zimbabwe, Ghana, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, chapters explore the normative measures, specific guarantees and community entitlements to natural resources for the realisation of the right to development. The book will be an invaluable guide to scholars and postgraduate students of Natural Resources, Development and African studies as well as policymakers and practitioners in these areas.
By the winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize in Economics, an essential and paradigm-altering framework for understanding economic development--for both rich and poor--in the twenty-first century. Freedom, Sen argues, is both the end and most efficient means of sustaining economic life and the key to securing the general welfare of the world's entire population. Releasing the idea of individual freedom from association with any particular historical, intellectual, political, or religious tradition, Sen clearly demonstrates its current applicability and possibilities. In the new global economy, where, despite unprecedented increases in overall opulence, the contemporary world denies elementary freedoms to vast numbers--perhaps even the majority of people--he concludes, it is still possible to practically and optimistically restain a sense of social accountability. Development as Freedom is essential reading.
The United Nations adopted the Declaration on the Right to Development in 1986. The Declaration recognizes that development is an inalienable human right, and describes development as a comprehensive process leading to the well-being of all people. All states are called upon to cooperate internationally and work nationally to ensure that this comprehensive process in which all human rights can be realized is undertaken without discrimination, and that all people may participate fully and equally in this process. This paper provides an elaboration of the content of the right to development by drawing on international law. It addresses the obligations of states, particularly with regard to international cooperation, and considers the application of obligations of conduct, as well as those of result, in giving this right meaning. This paper also details the rights of minorities and indigenous peoples and how they relate to the right to development. The creation of conditions that enable a state to develop will not necessarily lead to the realization of the right to development by the individuals within that state. Traditionally marginalized groups – notably, minorities and indigenous peoples – may not benefit from this development or may be harmed by it. Even where the right to development is being realized by the majority, the rights of minorities and indigenous peoples could be violated if the process undertaken does not take account of their rights. The authors discuss the need to have in place the standards to ensure that the protection and promotion of minority and indigenous rights are fully integrated into policies designed to fulfil the right to development. Written in cooperation with the UN Independent Expert on the right to development, this work builds on his contribution to the mandated objectives of the inter-state UN Working Group on the Right to Development. It provides an important contribution to the scope of rights and obligations in this area, and the implications that stem from them, particularly for minorities and indigenous peoples.
Governments fail to provide the public goods needed for development when its leaders knowingly and deliberately ignore sound technical advice or are unable to follow it, despite the best of intentions, because of political constraints. This report focuses on two forces—citizen engagement and transparency—that hold the key to solving government failures by shaping how political markets function. Citizens are not only queueing at voting booths, but are also taking to the streets and using diverse media to pressure, sanction and select the leaders who wield power within government, including by entering as contenders for leadership. This political engagement can function in highly nuanced ways within the same formal institutional context and across the political spectrum, from autocracies to democracies. Unhealthy political engagement, when leaders are selected and sanctioned on the basis of their provision of private benefits rather than public goods, gives rise to government failures. The solutions to these failures lie in fostering healthy political engagement within any institutional context, and not in circumventing or suppressing it. Transparency, which is citizen access to publicly available information about the actions of those in government, and the consequences of these actions, can play a crucial role by nourishing political engagement.
This open access book analyses the interplay of sustainable development and human rights from different perspectives including fight against poverty, health, gender equality, working conditions, climate change and the role of private actors. Each aspect is addressed from a more human rights-focused angle and a development-policy angle. This allows comparisons between the different approaches but also seeks to close gaps which would remain if only one perspective would be at the center of the discussions. Specifically, the book shows the strong connections between human rights and the objectives of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the United Nations in 2015. Already the preamble of this document explicitly states that "the 17 Sustainable Development Goals ... seek to realise the human rights of all". Moreover, several goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda correspond to already existing individual human rights obligations. The contributions of this volume therefore also address how the implementation of human rights and SDGs can reinforce each other, but also point to critical shortcomings of the different approaches.
