In order to answer the question ‘Do people have a right to development?’ we need to look at the document which defines what human rights are. TheUniversal Declaration on Human Rightswas agreed in 1948 after the end of the Second World War to bring nations together to promote peace and protect human life.
The Declaration is the first articulation of human rights and states that:
Human rights are universal - the birth right of all human beings.Human rights focus on the inherentdignity and equal worth of all human beings.All human rights are equal, indivisibleand interdependent (UN General Assembly, 1948).
In this context International Human Rights Law serves as:
A beacon - pulling states towards accepting human rightsA safety net - to supplement the national legal systemA basis - to ‘mobilise shame’ of the international community
The application of international human rights frameworks means that governments are (or should be) heldaccountable for their actions. There are four categories of Human Rights obligations of the State:
Respecting a right means that a state must not violate a particular right.Protecting a right means that a state has to prevent violations of that right by non-state actors.Fulfilling a right means that a state has to take all appropriate measures (allocate resources), to the realisation of that right.Promoting a right means that a state must educate the public and raise awareness about that right.
The UN convened the first World Conference on Human Rights in 1968 which recognised that for:
“the achievement of lasting progress the implementation of human rights is dependent upon sound and effective national and international policies of social and economic development” (United Nations, 1968).
This was taken forward by Judge Keba M’Baye from Senegal who in 1972 advocated that development should be viewed as a right. He persisted with this claim and secured a 1977 UN Commission on Human Rights resolution for a study to be conducted on the right to development as a human right.
In the 1980’s development economist Amartya Sen began writing about entitlements and deprivation in relation to famine and argued that famine was not the result of a lack of food, but of inequalities in the way in which food was distributed. Attention was thus drawn to a human rights approach to development based on the principles of social justice and equity which culminated in the UN Declaration on the Right to Development in 1986.
Last week we showed you the definition of development agreed at the 1986 UNDeclaration on the Right to Development. The following are key features of theDeclaration:
The human person is identified as the beneficiary of the right to development, as of all human rights.The right to development can be invoked both by individuals and by peoples.It imposes obligations both on individual States - to ensure equal and adequate access to essential resources - and on the international community - to promote fair development policies and effective international cooperation.
The Right to Development includes six principles:
full sovereignty over natural resourcesself-determinationpopular participation in developmentnon-discriminationequality of opportunity for developmentthe creation of favourable conditions for the enjoyment of other civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights
We will come back to the issues of natural resources in the final week of the course and the extent to which the other principles have been upheld.
All thanks to:
University of Aberdeen.
